


Half of a Double Life

by orphan_account



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Mild Gore, Mild Language, adrien is not a happy child, adrien/angst, chat noir becomes a party boy, getcher lore here!!, lots and lots of headcanon lore, mari worries about her boys, nino is the ron friend and alya is the mom friend, not knowing theyre the same boy, rebellious adrien, rebellious chat noir, that's the main ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-07-15 14:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 53,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7225435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One half of a double life is not a real life. Adrien Agreste doesn't look forward to summer vacation, which just means more modelling that he doesn't want to do. During the last week of school, Adrien behaves strangely and then - disappears. All of Paris is in a panic looking for Adrien, and all of the Ladybug and Chat Noir fandom is in a panic trying to figure out why Chat Noir has become a regular attendee of raves in an abandoned warehouse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Goddammit, Tikki's the One Who Knows How to Deal With Crying Kids

Monday, the last week of the school year. Birds chirped and the sun shined, and Adrien Agreste would have killed for summer to not be upon them. The teachers were just as excited for summer as most of their students and were no longer bothering to keep any sort of disciplinary hold on them, so Adrien didn’t bother to be concerned if any teachers noticed his distraction. 

Nino huffed as he watched his friend frown and gaze into the middle distance. This distraction was out of character for the blond and while the teachers were past the point of giving two shits, he worried. “Adrien?” he droned for the tenth time in two minutes. “Hey, Earth to Agreste,” he said, snapping his fingers in front of his friend’s face.

Adrien jumped at the finger snapping and lightly batted the darker boy’s hand out of his face. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

Nino pursed his lips and raised an eyebrow into a disapproving expression. “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to Italy for a week this summer. I’m visiting family and my older sister is paying to come separately from University, so there’s room in the budget for you to come with. My parentals have already approved.”

Adrien smiled in spite of the way his stomach roiled both at the thought of asking his father to let him go and at the thought of leaving Ladybug alone for a week. She hadn’t been hurt in the akuma attack that happened when he was in New York City over winter break, but he still felt guilty about it. “I’d love to man, but you know how my father is about-”

“Travelling, me, anything that isn’t exactly what he wants you to be doing…” Nino sighed but didn’t push the matter. “How does your father manage to be so controlling and so emotionally absent at the same time?”

Adrien shrugged and went back to staring into the ether. “I guess he’s talented like that,” he sighed.

“Am I gonna have to pull a Ron Weasley and rescue you from the Muggles?”

Adrien smiled at the reference. “Hell yeah, go get arrested for trespassing for my sake, that’s a great idea. Besides, you don’t have the freckles to be a Weasley.”

“I love you too, but in all seriousness, am I gonna have to get Alya to hire Ladybug to rescue you from your prison?”

Alya and Marinette both glanced up from their own conversation at the mention of Ladybug. 

“Why am I gonna have to hire Ladybug to rescue you?”

“Why does Ladybug need to rescue you?”

Adrien rolled his eyes and shot a brief _thanks for getting their attention_ glare at Nino as he turned to the girls. “With school out, my father’s going to want to make up for the time I’ve lost being a real boy by making me work double time on modelling.” He let his lack of excitement show in his voice, but not the pang of anxiety at the thought of being out of contact with the friends he had made.

“Do you not like being a model?” Marinette asked. The thought had never crossed her mind, she had assumed he didn’t talk about his career because he was being modest.

Adrien shrugged. “Shoots themselves aren’t that bad, but,” _but I don’t like being viewed as little more than a poseable mannequin, a sales tool, or a pretty face to swoon over_. “The people can be full of themselves.” _Probably because they aren’t full enough on actual food_. He dreaded the thought of people finding out about his penchant for treats from the Dupain-Cheng bakery. 

While it wasn’t lost on the other three that there was more to his anxiety than that, even Nino didn’t entirely grasp its depths. He knew his best friend resented being treated like an employee by his father, and that the model dreaded getting out of touch with his friends and had an irrational fear of somehow messing up his own friendships, but he felt that there was more to it than that.

“Is that why you’ve been so distracted lately?” Nino asked, even though he knew with a fair amount of certainty that it was.

“Yeah, I guess,” Adrien said, shrugging and flashing his best fake smile. “I’ll be fine, it’s not like I’ll be in a real prison.”

This seemed to appease the others, although Nino wasn’t entirely convinced, and the teens fell into an easy conversation about the relative virtues of mopeds.

That night, as the sun slipped below the horizon, a dark figure crept out a window of the Agreste mansion. Moving through camera blind spots with expert precision, he slipped into the trees at the western edge of the property, past the gardens, and merged with the night. Minutes later, the figure alighted on the roof of an abandoned warehouse - though you’d never guess it was abandoned based off the thrumming music and light that came from the nightclub of questionable legality on the main floor. 

Chat Noir slipped into what had been the manager’s office through a broken skylight and settled on the mattress on the floor. He stretched luxuriously and released his transformation in a flash of green light. For a moment he simply laid there, enjoying the thumping bass from below. And then, alas, Plagg started talking.

“So Adrien, is there any reason in particular why you’ve been spending more time your little… nest… here?” Plagg asked, gesturing to the mattress and associated quilts - Alya had gone wild speculating why Chat Noir was browsing thrift stores for quilts - as well as a secret second phone. 

Adrien shrugged. “I don’t like being at the house.”

“You never like being at the house.”

“It’s really a terrible place.”

“So what’s so special about now? You’ve slept here every night for the past week and a half.”

“I don’t want to sleep at the house.”

“You’re not giving me the whole truth.”

“The bass from the club helps me sleep.”

Plagg narrowed his eyes. “You’re being evasive.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Adrien said casually, letting his Chat Noir out where nobody other than Plagg was around to witness it. He knew he was pissing the little cat off, and his heart would probably stop beating if he cared any less.

“You’re _definitely_ being evasive. You’re being evasive to your friends, to your father, to his staff, and now you’re being evasive to _me_ , which I don’t like.” Plagg’s eyes narrowed further when he noticed Adrien protectively rubbing his ring, but chose to deal with that later. As much as the kid pissed him off he was a good fit for the job. “I’m going to ask one more time, why are you being such a rat?”

Adrien gave a Cheshire grin. “I thought I was being a cat,” he said, opening one eye to look at Plagg.

“I don’t _have_ to transform you, you know. What are you avoiding?”

_What?_ Adrien sat up and turned his back on the kwami. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“No joke,” Plagg said sarcastically, zipping over to look his charge in the eye again. “Why don’t you want to talk about it?”

Adrien sighed. He knew the little asshole cat wouldn’t let up, but he wasn’t going to make it easy either. “Because I don’t want to think about it.”

“And what is it that you’re trying to avoid thinking about?” Plagg rolled his eyes at the boy’s silence. “Obviously you’re thinking about it anyway, so you might as well talk about it. Who knows, maybe some of my grand wisdom of the millenia will help you.”

Adrien scowled. “You’re not going to let me out of this, are you?”

“You know me well enough to know I’m not. So what’s eating you, kid?”

“The fact that I’m gonna spend the summer as a slave to my father.”

Plagg sighed and rolled his eyes. “Is that all this is about? Because you don’t want to be a model all summer? You know, some kids would kill for-”

“That’s because they don’t get it!” Adrien snarled. He got to his feet and started pacing. “They don’t get what it’s like not to have any control over anything that happens in their life. I can’t be myself to anybody but my friends - hell, I can’t even really be myself without the mask on! To everybody else in the entire world, I’m just a pretty face to stick in front of a camera or use to sell clothes or swoon over. It’s like I’m not even a human I’m just a, a _doll_ to people. To my friends, I’m an actual person, and I’m scared of losing that for two months over the summer and I’m fucking _terrified_ that they won’t talk to me after being out of touch with them, okay? I’m scared, okay, are you satisfied? I’m scared that I’m not gonna be a person for two whole months, and the only way I can get out of it is by being Chat Noir, okay?”

Plagg balked when he realized that his charge was crying. _Ugly_ crying. Most holders of the black cat Miraculous were at least a little morbid, of course, it came with the territory of wielding supernatural powers of destruction. But now it dawned on him that this kid was fucked up and in the worst way - the way where nobody would ever guess. _Goddammit, Tikki’s the one who knows how to deal with crying kids!_ “Hey, kid, calm down, you don’t need to cry about it.”

“Like you give a damn about anything other than stinky cheese,” Adrien grumbled, sinking down to the mattress and pulling one of the dusty quilts up around him.

_Harsh_. “Hey, Adrien, calm down,” the little black cat said, floating up by his shoulder. “Kid, you should have told me that you were cut up about this before. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

Adrien glanced at the kwami and looked back down. “I don’t know how to tell people when I’m upset,” he muttered, and cried into the massive quilt comforter.

Plagg hesitated, unsure of how to deal with this, and curled up against the blond’s neck and tried to be soothing.

Neither was entirely sure how long it took, but eventually Adrien’s shoulders stopped shaking with violent, panicked sobs, and he settled down to simply sniffling.

“You okay kid?”

“No, but I’m done crying for now,” Adrien murmured, reaching up to gently scratch the little cat’s head. “That was embarrassing. I’m sorry for yelling at you, Plagg. I’m just… kinda freaking out right now.”

“Yeah, I noticed. So, if you become Chat Noir and hide in a secret loft when you’re upset, what do you do when you’re upset and you can’t be Chat Noir?”

Adrien considered this. In the past glorious year, he had gotten so used to being able to run off and be a superhero that he had almost forgotten what he did before that was an option. “Well, before Chat Noir, I suppose I would work out until I was so tired I couldn’t think about how upset I was. I used to spend hours running until I was close to passing out.”

Plagg shook his head. “And here I thought that you used to have _healthy_ coping mechanisms.”

“Running is healthy!”

“Not if you’re pushing yourself so hard you pass out, especially on a model’s diet!” Plagg scolded.

Adrien tried to argue, and just closed his mouth.

Plagg sighed and shook his head again. “You care too much about your father’s opinion, do you know that?”

“I’m pretty sure it’s normal for human kids to want their parents’ approval, Plagg.”

“But you take it so far that you stop caring about what you want. You’re a superhero, kid! You’re Ladybug’s partner, one of the saviors of Paris, and a warrior for good and justice and all that bullshit. Why can’t you stand up for yourself outside the mask?”

“I… I ask myself that a lot.” Adrien smiled and uncurled from the blankets. “Come on, I don’t want to sit here moping, I want to go hop some roofs.”

_This kid is a roller coaster_ , Plagg thought as he was drawn into the silver ring. But he kept his thoughts to himself, instead enjoying the feelings of mirth he sensed from his charge as they raced themselves across the city.

The next morning, Adrien Agreste was absolutely exhausted. He had been pushing himself at top speed around the city until at least midnight, simply relishing in the feeling of air in his lungs and work in his muscles. When he woke up, he was sore and stiff in a way he hadn’t been in years, and groaned as he reached out to turn off his alarm clock. “I haven’t been this sore in ages,” he complained, though his smile gave away his true thoughts.

“I don’t see why you’re so excited about that, kid.”

Adrien shrugged as he went to shower. “It’s a morbid kind of pride, I guess, that _I_ have some power over myself.”

Plagg shivered behind the boy’s back. He knew from experience that he didn’t want his charge in any station on that train of thought.

The remainder of the week went in much the same way. Adrien got up, bore the overview of his daily schedule speaking as few words as possible, went to school and his afternoon activities, ate dinner in silence, and spent the evening and most of the night as Chat Noir. He was so tired and distracted during the school day that he didn’t even hear Alya loudly commenting on the fact that Chat Noir had become more active, and speculating if he, too, was getting out of school.

There were no more fits of crying, but much to Nino and Plagg’s chagrin, the blond got anstier and antsier every day; by Friday he could barely sit still. Chloé, of all people, was the one who revealed to their class just how tense he was. After lunch, when Adrien was just about to sit down, she put her arm around his shoulder (or rather, tried to, since he was half a head taller than her) and batted her eyes up at him. “So, Adrien, what sorts of shoots are you doing this summer?”

“Huh?” Adrien said dumbly, trying to extract himself from her. He couldn’t help wondering if she was really that strong or if it was just her sharp manicured nails.

“Do you know if you’ll be going out of town?”

Adrien swallowed. In a wave of rushing heartbeats, it hit him, the main monster of his thoughts: he knew his summer was going to be unpleasant, but he didn’t know how, when, or where. He felt that he could scream.

Nino watched suspiciously as his friend grew pale, and then turned bright red as something manic glimmered in his green eyes. And then his own eyes blew open when Adrien backed away from Chloé, looked around the room at all the eyes watching him, and _screamed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if you're re-reading this, you might have noticed that it's different.
> 
> That's because I wrote the first 19 chapters of this fanfic (actually the first 23 plus 3 chapters for the sin bin) in less than two weeks and it was... rather apparent, so I deleted the last four chapters and I'm working on rewriting the first 19 chapters. Yay 1 down 18 to go!
> 
> If you see a marked drop in quality at any point in the first 19 chapters, that's probably because I haven't fixed all of it yet. Happy reading :D


	2. Did You Just Make a Sailor Moon Reference?

On Friday, Adrien was already sleep-deprived and anxious. When Chloé turned on him, asking if he knew the exactitudes of his summertime hell, it was too much. Her presence was too close, the walls of the room were too close, the sun was too bright and his heart beat too hard. The last tormented rubber band of self control that kept him from screaming incoherently snapped, and so he screamed, half-blinded by panic, and sprinted away as fast and far as his feet would take him. 

When he cleared a mile from the school he ducked into an alley and gave Plagg the command to transform him. He caught his breath once in costume, leaning against a wall. Normally, tight pleather covering him in this state would be constraining, constricting, and just add to his panic, but _this_ tight pleather was Chat Noir’s, the uniform of freedom and agency. It was like a warm hug all over his body. He was vaguely conscious that he had just screamed for no apparent reason and sprinted out, but he was too wired up on his own panic to care.

Minutes after Adrien Agreste screamed and ran off, Chat Noir settled in the branches in the tree in the park, directly over the head of a street performer with a guitar. He stretched his legs and leaned back against the main trunk, humming along to the songs he recognized and regretful that he didn’t have any money to toss in the musician’s case. 

Chat had just started drifting into a nice, much-needed cat nap when he heard a mewling overhead. He opened one green eye and peered up into the branches above, and spotted a half-grown calico. He couldn’t help smiling; it had taken him a few tries to figure out the _getting down_ part of trees as well. He glanced down and chuckled at the distraught child who apparently belonged to the cat. “Don’t worry, kiddo,” he called from his perch, startling the musician beneath him. “I’ll have your friend down in just a minute.”

Chat Noir clambered up the tree with ease - climbing had become a hobby since gaining the freedom to have hobbies - and pried the terrified feline from the branch she was clinging to. Holding the calico in one hand and using the claws on the other to hold onto the tree, he scrambled down and purred from deep in his chest to calm the poor creature.

The cat’s young human took her best friend from the hero’s arms with a squeal of delight. “Thank you, Chat Noir!” she exclaimed, hugging his leg with one arm.

Chat Noir smiled and patted the girl’s head. “It was my pleasure. Just be careful not to let your friend outside unattended; you wouldn’t want her to get in a tussle with a hawk or a dog without me there to save her.”

The child nodded and ran off, cat held in protective, if jostling, arms. The black suited superhero could only smile at the cat’s _help me!_ expression. He glanced at a clock tower and sighed when he realized he would need to be back at school soon to get in the Gorilla’s car. Chat Noir slipped into a school bathroom through an open window, and Adrien exited the building via the front doors. Thankfully, the Gorilla was right there, so he could get in the car without having to face uncomfortable, unanswerable questions from his classmates. This relief was short-lived, however, as the video window on the back of the seat in front of him lit up with his father’s face the second he was buckled in.

_Ah, hell_. “Hello, father,” Adrien said in an even tone. “I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

Gabriel Agreste’s face was unreadable. “I wasn’t expecting to _need_ to see you today. Would you like to explain to me what happened after lunch?”

Adrien paused just long enough to contain a cattish growl - it wouldn’t do to let his Chat Noir show, no matter how much it frustrated him that his father didn’t feel a need to see him if he wasn’t in trouble. “I had been having a bad day already. I’ve been a little anxious because I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to see my friends over the summer, between everybody going on vacations and whatever I’ll be doing,” he explained, keeping his tone light. “And then Chloé was asking about what I’m doing over the summer, and I don’t know what I’ll be doing over the summer, so I kinda freaked out. I spent the rest of the day in the library reading.” It was _mostly_ the truth.

Gabriel narrowed his eyes slightly. It wouldn’t be noticed by anybody unless they were looking for a reaction. For example, Adrien. “I don’t appreciate your behavior today, Adrien. It should be _obvious_ to you that you will be concentrating on your modelling this summer. It should be obvious that you don’t need friends. And it should be obvious, most importantly, that you must never show any weakness. Anxiety is not a trait suitable for an Agreste.” From that point on, Gabriel’s words went in one of Adrien’s ears and out the other.

Adrien could _feel_ Chat Noir’s hackles raising beneath his own calm face, could feel his absent ears and tail flicking in anger. _Weakness? I shouldn’t show any weakness? Or should I not show any humanity?_ he wanted to ask. _Was it weakness when I transformed in mid-air? Was I weak for not following through? Or was the thing before that the weakness?_ He felt an overwhelming urge to take a Cataclysm to the screen. Actually - no. He wanted something more visceral than that, and this man wasn’t worth his special. He wanted to rip the entire car to pieces with his bare claws.

As Gabriel lectured on, Adrien’s mind kept going back to the first words. This man didn’t need to see him unless it was to scold him? Didn’t need to see his own goddamned son? _Fine. Cool. You won’t_. The thought made his heart race in exhilaration, even as a cold stone settled in his stomach with the weight of the fact that his father cared about him so little that he could say the sentence _‘it should be obvious that you don’t need friends_ ’ with a straight face. That wasn’t just untrue, it was in firm contradiction of psychological fact about human needs. It was downright _fucking abusive_ , and this realization filled him with a rage he had never felt. 

It was a rage that burned cold as he brushed off Nathalie’s inquiries into his well-being, stalked to his room, and started packing a bag.

“Adrien,” Plagg said, with uncharacteristic softness, “are you okay?”

Adrien started laughing, and turned to Plagg with an unpleasant glint in his overly wide eyes. “Am I _okay_?” he repeated, in something between a stage whisper and a hiss. “Of course I’m not motherfucking okay - my father seems to have forgotten that human beings need social contact. He doesn’t think he needs to see me?” He giggled. “Fine, he doesn’t, and he’s not going to.”

Plagg felt his blood chill. _Oh gods he’s going to be one of_ those _ones_. “What are you planning?”

“I’m leaving. I’m leaving and I’m never coming back to this prison, or to the son of a bitch that owns it.”

Plagg raised an eyebrow. He had heard Adrien swear before, of course, but never about his father. Not that he could or would disagree with the boy’s assessment of his character. For a brief moment, he considered not transforming his charge, but decided to go along with whatever the blond was doing, if only so that he could keep an eye on him.

Chat Noir slipped out the window the moment he was done packing clothes, toiletries, and cash in a duffel bag, too manic with rage and hurt to care that he was visible. He launched himself onto the rooftops and ran at an easy, loping pace to his abandoned warehouse, which actually was abandoned during the day.

Plagg winced internally as he picked up on what the young hero was thinking; a mixture of blind fear and visions of getting far away, and blind rage and visions of bloody destruction. He knew that the latter wasn’t something the boy actually wanted, merely an intrusion from his tormented subconscious, but _holy shit this kid needs a therapist_. Remembering what Gabriel had said about anxiety not being a suitable trait, he felt that if Chat Noir one day decided to burn the Agreste mansion to the ground, he wouldn’t stop him.

In the loft, Chat Noir started to turn back into Adrien, but then decided against it. So long as he didn’t use Cataclysm, he could stay transformed for a fairly extensive period of time, and he didn’t want to be Adrien again yet. He wasn’t _ready_ yet. 

It took three days for Adrien Agreste to be declared missing.

After that third day, Chat Noir surprised the staff at the local mall, and gave Alya an aneurism, by simply going about his normal errands - purchasing a new pair of earbuds and a few items of clothing.

“Chat Noir! Why have you been running civilian errands in uniform?” Alya asked, wielding her phone camera as she ran up to him, with Marinette trailing behind.

The cat gave a big smile. “I decided that the people of Paris ought to know that even superheroes accidentally step on their earbuds sometimes.” Chat Noir eyed Marinette, who was standing a couple feet behind the aspiring journalist. “I hope you haven’t received any more advances from unscrupulous villains, Mademoiselle,” he said, and then his slitted pupils grew almost circular as he smelled the food court. “And if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll treat myself to something yummy…”

Alya giggled at his cat-like mannerisms. “And what exactly do you consider yummy, Chat Noir?”

Marinette couldn’t help but smile. It was a little cute when he started acting like a real cat. A little.

Chat Noir’s green eyes were fixed on the Panda Express at the opposite end of the food court. “Right now? I think some westernized Chinese food with far more sodium than can possibly good for me is in order.” He glanced at the camera and grinned. “Now, I’m sure all of Paris and beyond would love to know what their favorite pretty guardian’s usual order at Panda Express is, but it’s rude to watch people eat,” he said, blowing a kiss at the camera.

“Did you just make a _Sailor Moon_ reference?” Marinette asked incredulously. Girly anime was not something she would have thought her partner in crime-fighting to be fond of.

Chat Noir winked. “Maybe.”

The girls could only look at each other. “Oh wait! One more question!”

The blond grinned. “But of course, I would love to answer my favorite journalist’s questions. What do you have for me?”

Alya died for a couple seconds - _Chat Noir said I was his favorite journalist!!!_ but soon remembered herself. “Are you and Ladybug doing anything about Adrien Agreste?”

Chat’s pupils narrowed slightly, and his ears tilted back. “We haven’t discussed it, but I’m sure it will be on the agenda for our patrol strategy chat tonight. In the meantime…” He stepped closer so that only Alya could hear. “Adrien is a friend of mine. I’ll have a message from him tomorrow. Meet me at the Louvre at nine PM.” He stepped back and smiled. “I’m going to go eat now, have a good day ladies.”

Alya stood still for a moment. “What?” she said, half to herself.

“What did he say?”

Alya relayed what Chat Noir had told her. “Well, I guess it means I’m going to the Louvre tomorrow.”

Marinette frowned. “I’m not any less worried about Adrien.” Since news of the model being declared missing broke the previous day, she had been crying her way through a nervous tizzy.

Alya put a hand on her shoulder. “I know. But hey, if Chat Noir knows where he is and I don’t have any videos of him busting Adrien out of some terrible prison, then he’s probably not in some terrible prison, right?”

“Yeah…” She was still unhappy, and it was reflected in Ladybug’s voice that night.

“I didn’t know you knew where the Agreste boy is.” Her voice was harsh as she faced Chat Noir in the fading sunlight.

The cat shrugged, leaning against a steel beam of the Eiffel Tower. “You didn’t ask.”

Ladybug scowled. “You should have told me when he was declared missing.”

“And how am I supposed to find you when you’re not in the suit? I respect our agreement not to look for each other as civilians.” The cat looked over and held her gaze for a long moment. “Don’t worry, My Lady, I know what I’m doing.”

“Do you? Do you really? Chat, I-” She huffed. “I know Adrien in my civilian life. And I’m worried about him. A _lot_ of people are worried about him. And as far as I can see, all you’re doing is just letting people worry themselves sick.”

Chat Noir raised an eyebrow in an expression of amusement. “Worried sick, hm?” _Too bad none of the important ones are worried for the right reason. But then - Ladybug's worried about me?_

Ladybug shot him a harsh glare. “Don’t be so excited, you terrible tomcat, any boy that I like in that way would just be competition for you.”

“True, but I like competition.” _Especially when the competition is myself._

Ladybug rolled her eyes. “So where is he?”

Chat sighed and shook his head. “I’m under express orders not to give that information. Even to you.”

“And why not?”

“Because Adrien doesn’t want me to. He told me why, and I don’t blame him.”

“People are worried about him.”

A growl sounded in the back of Chat Noir’s throat. “And what do you expect me to do, Ladybug? Do you genuinely expect me to send a kid back to a fa-” He bit his tongue. “It’s not my place to tell you the details of his home life. All you need to know is that I wouldn’t wish it on Hawkmoth. If he decides to go home, he will, but I’m going to respect his wishes, and if that means secrecy, it means secrecy.”

“Oh.” Ladybug thought about that for a moment. She didn’t know much of anything about her crush’s home life. She knew that he was kept busy, and that apparently he didn’t much like modelling, and he wasn’t happy to spend the summer that way. And he had been inordinately happy about a birthday present from his father… “Are, are you telling me that Adrien ran away from home?”

Chat Noir made a face of displeasure. “That’s a bit of a simplification, but basically, yes. And yes, I am enabling that. I have no sympathy for Gabriel Agreste and I don’t regret my decision,” he said, giving her a firm look. “Shall I take the east side, My Lady?”

“You’re… really serious about this, aren’t you?” There was something disconcerting in her partner’s eyes. Like there were shadows hiding deep within those green eyes, all masked in flirty puns.

Chat nodded. “I have a… a thing when it comes to shitty parents. I don’t like seeing kids go through what I’ve been through.”

Ladybug’s eyes widened. Chat’s home life wasn’t good? She knew he couldn’t possibly be enough older than her for his relationship with his parents to be in past tense. Was he a runaway too? “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t… oh.” He was already gone into the darkness of the eastern skyline. Not for the first time, she wondered why he was so skinny for his height and heroic exercise habits. She had always assumed that he was simply one of those people with a freakish metabolism, but now she wasn’t so sure. Was he struggling to feed himself? Were his parents _starving_ him? _And what about Adrien?_ Perhaps Ladybug would meet Alya and Chat Noir tomorrow for the message from Adrien.


	3. You Should Be

At 8:30 in the evening, Chat Noir had spent twenty minutes putting euros into street performer’s cases around the Louvre while he waited for Alya. He was listening to a violist’s rendition of Ravel’s Bolero when a familiar red and black figure alighted next to him.

“My Lady, how lovely to see you,” he greeted, taking her hand to kiss it. “Have you come to waltz with me beneath the first stars?”

Ladybug pulled her hand from his and flicked one of his ears. “No, as a matter of fact, I haven’t.”

“I already know that this fellow here knows several excellent waltzes. Are you feeling Strauss or Lehár? Or perhaps you’d prefer something jazzy, and a little Shostakovich would be in order.”

Ladybug raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you know about classical music?”

“Did you really think that the suave and debonair Chat Noir _wouldn’t_ be a patron of the arts?”

“I suppose I could see you sneaking into the opera with a mask.” She gave him a suspicious look when he purposely tried to look innocent. “Oh, don’t tell me you actually do that.”

“It would be very rude of me to lie to you, My Lady.”

Ladybug sighed, and glanced at the violist, who turned and faced another corner of the square to give them as much privacy as he could without leaving his case. “I came about your message. Alya told me about it.”

Chat Noir raised an eyebrow. “So you were at the mall in civilian form yesterday? My Lady was so near and I never noticed, why I’m positively flustered,” he said, putting a hand to his heart. He pretended to shrink under her harsh blue gaze. “Okay, or maybe Alya told you after the mall. Anyway, yeah, you can come with. I was going to have Alya livestream it anyway,” he said, shrugging. “Thank you for the performance,” he said to the violist, who nodded at him in appreciation as he dropped a few more euros into his case before walking away with Ladybug.

Ladybug watched this with approval. In her opinion, most street musicians didn’t get enough love. “You were going to have it livestreamed?”

“Yeah. Although now that I think about it, that might crash the Ladyblog,” he mused, snickering. “Ah, and here comes the lady of the hour.” He called to her and waved her over.

Alya looked overjoyed to see both of them there. They both knew from reading the Ladyblog that she was completely blown away by the fact that one of her idols had called her his favorite journalist, and it was obvious in the admiration in her eyes. “Both of you! I didn’t know you would be here, Ladybug. Do you also have a message?”

Ladybug eyed Chat Noir. They avoided letting civilians see disagreements between the two of them; they preferred the public think they were an unbreakable team. But Alya had edited out signs of major disagreements and injuries before, so she trusted the girl. “Actually, I’m here to listen to this alleged message from Adrien myself. I didn’t know it was a thing until yesterday.”

Chat Noir cleared his throat. “Now, I _was_ planning to livestream the message from the top of Notre Dame. Alya, shall I take you, or would you rather travel with My Lady?”

“Uh, I’ll go with Ladybug.”

“Okay.” Chat Noir shot Ladybug a wink and a salute before vaulting off towards the great cathedral.

Ladybug wrapped Alya’s arms around her shoulders and an arm around her waist, and took off after her partner.

Atop the Cathedral of Notre Dame, Alya shivered, legs wobbling as she stepped away from Ladybug. “That… was the coolest thing _I have ever done in my life!_ ” she squealed.

Both heroes smiled. They supposed that yeah, swinging and leaping about the rooftops of Paris probably _was_ the best way to travel. “Chat, where did you get the chairs and cooler?”

Chat Noir smiled at the talk show style set-up he had put together. “I borrowed them from a fan. Sorry there’s only two chairs, I wasn’t expecting you, My Lady.”

Ladybug shrugged. “It’s cool. Tell you what, Alya, you got a talk show interview with me, how about I man the camera so you can get one with Chat?”

Alya’s eyes widened to hazel dinner plates. “That would be amazing. I even have some questions prepared!”

Chat Noir smiled. “That’s fine by me,” he said, pulling water bottles from the cooler. “Since this is gonna be longer than just the message from Adrien, I don’t really care if you livestream it or record it.”

The three settled, and Alya gave Ladybug the cue to start the stream. “Good evening Paris, this is Alya Césaire live with Chat Noir, on top of the Cathedral of Notre Dame, for an interview and a message from the missing Adrien Agreste. Chat Noir, do you mind explaining why you chose the roof of Notre Dame for this?”

Chat Noir smiled. “Privacy, really. The ornaments and gargoyles make it difficult for anybody to see up here, and because the bells aren’t rung anymore - they’re so big that they threaten the structure of the cathedral when they ring - nobody comes up here except after storms to make sure nothing is broken.”

Alya nodded. “Makes sense to me. Now, the reason you invited me here was for a message from Adrien Agreste. Can you tell us a little about your relationship with Adrien?”

“Alas, no. I can only tell you that we’re close, any more detail than that could lead to my civilian identity. Ladybug and I have agreed to keep our real names top secret, and besides that, I don’t particularly want Gabriel Agreste’s security force barging into my home,” he said with a gentle laugh.

“So I suppose you can’t tell us where Adrien is?”

“Only that he’s staying with me.” Chat Noir gave a gentle smile. “Perhaps the words of Adrien himself would answer your questions a little better.” He closed his eyes, and cleared his throat, and faced the camera when he opened them. 

Ladybug narrowed her eyes from behind Alya’s phone. Once again, she saw dark shadows behind his vivid green eyes that had nothing to do with the time of evening. But this was different, there was an unfamiliar tension in his face. It was like he was asking the camera for something. 

“I left my house because it wasn’t a home.” Chat Noir knew that most viewers would hear words memorized and recited on another man’s behalf. He hoped that the most important of those watching would understand that they were his own words. “I feel like I wasn’t just living a lie, but like I was a living lie, unable to say what I really thought or do what I needed to do. Like a camel expected to live in the rainforest, I was surviving but not really living.” He paused, and closed his eyes again. “And so, to my father, Gabriel Agreste, I’ve issued a challenge.”

Ladybug’s eyes widened when Chat Noir started talking again. His voice had gone harm and there was a dark determination in his face, the way he stared down the camera. The animal nature of his eyes, with their slitted pupils and green sclerae, was suddenly more intimidating than it had ever been before.

“I’ll be ready to go home when you understand why I left. When you figure out what the last straw was, and when you admit what you did to me, then I’ll come back. Until then, I’ll be staying with Chat Noir.” His expression softened, and he gave a gentle smile. “And to my friends, I miss you too. Don’t worry.” He nodded to himself and turned back to Alya.

Alya stared at him for a long moment. _Well damn if that challenge means we’re never gonna see Adrien again_ , she thought. “I… wow. So, why are you taking Adrien in like this, if, like you said, there’s a risk of Gabriel Agreste’s security breaking into your home?”

Chat Noir sat back. “That’s… yeah.” He laughed. “I shouldn’t be laughing about this, but I have a… a thing - no. I’ll be real, I live in an emotionally abusive home. And… I’m doing good by Adrien in a way I’ll never get done by myself.” He smiled when he saw the surprised looks on Alya and Ladybug’s faces. “Why do you think I leapt for the chance to be a superhero?”

“Why _did_ you leap for that chance?”

Chat smiled. “There are two types of people who become superheroes. Ladybug is one of those kinds of heroes. She does it because she feels that she has a moral duty to do it. Then there are people like me. I…” he laughed. “I do it because I don’t have any _other_ reason to be alive, and I don’t think I can go into any more detail with than that without getting emotional, and I don’t feel like doing that tonight.”

Alya glanced over at Ladybug. “Oh. Well, then,” 

Ladybug didn’t listen to much of the rest of the interview, instead wrangling over what Chat Noir had said. What did he mean he didn’t have any other reason to be alive? He couldn’t be much older than her, so he was probably going to school, and she couldn’t imagine flirtatious, hyperactive, pun-addicted Chat Noir not having a million friends. But then… he spent significantly more time in costume than she did, going out for at least two hours almost every night, where she only transformed for akumas. Was it because he didn’t enjoy his civilian life? 

Upon Alya’s cue, she stopped filming and returned the phone, and escorted the journalist back to the Louvre, still thinking about her partner.

“You’re worrying about Chat Noir.”

“What?”

Alya pursed her lips. “You’re worrying about Chat Noir.”

“Oh. Yeah, a little bit.”

“You should be.”

Ladybug stared at the girl. “What?”

“You heard what he said today, and you’ve seen how he’s Chat Noir all the time, and you’ve seen how he puts himself in harm’s way for you,” Alya said darkly. “He can’t possibly be healthy. _Mentally_ healthy. You should be worrying about him.”

Ladybug didn’t have time to question the slightly cryptic words, she was already leaving. She looked back to the cathedral in the distance and wondered what Chat Noir was doing.

Chat Noir wandered around the city for about half an hour. He had returned first to the warehouse he was staying in, and then decided he didn’t feel like going to bed yet. So, instead, he turned and went to La Sorbonne. Several months previously, he had discovered a window in the university’s music wing that didn’t lock. Through that window he crept, and looked around the room that it opened to. As always, there was a grand piano in the chamber club’s rehearsal room, and as always, he seated himself on the bench and carefully lifted the keyboard lid like it was something precious.

Smiling with a contented sigh, he spread his hands over the keys. It had taken a few weeks to figure out how to play despite his claws, but now that he was used to it, this was a favorite spot of his. He noodled around on the piano, making up chord progressions and improvising melodies to warm up, and soon found himself playing a sweet, bouncy line from the musical Hamilton. 

He nodded at his own subconscious. This was the form he needed his catharsis to take, and the lyrics of Dear Theodosia began to spill from his throat. He had cried like a baby when he first heard this song in the theater while on a trip to New York. Some of the other models around him - going to see a Broadway show together had been an agency activity - had sniffled, but he had _bawled_.

The night janitor for the music wing paused outside one of the larger rooms. For the past several months, he kept hearing music coming from this room at night, always the piano, sometimes accompanied by a gentle tenor. Once, just once, he decided to walk in and see who was there. When he realized he had walked in on Chat Noir crying over a piano, he had decided not to worry about who was enjoying the instruments after dark. The hero of Paris would probably have preferred nobody know about that habit, he had decided. And so he moved on before he had a chance to hear the soft voice crack with sorrow.

Chat Noir’s eyes were closed, brows bunched up, and the softest smile graced his features. His hands were brisk and gentle against the keys, pulling chords that sounded like love felt out of the instrument. He had practiced for hours to make the piano sound like the guitar in the second half of the song.

As it did every time he tried to sing this song, his voice gave out when he came to the line _my son_. He pulled his quivering voice through Hamilton’s verses, even as tears splashed down on the keyboard. “ _My father wasn’t around_ …” his warm tenor had been reduced to a mere whisper. “ _I swear that I’ll be around for you_ …”

Last December in New York City Adrien Agreste had bawled in a theatre like a baby during that song. He cried all the harder that night in the wake of his father’s lecture on embarrassing the family name. Did Gabriel Agreste have any understanding that his son cried in the middle of a Broadway theatre because he wished that his father would say the words ‘my son’ the way that the actor on the stage did? Would Gabriel Agreste ever guess that his son used a magical suit to sneak into a room to play a piano and sing and pretend that it was his father’s voice and not his own? Probably not, and that was why he was using a magical suit so sneak into a room to play a piano when he should have been sleeping in a warm bed in a loving home.

“ _Yeah you’ll blow us all away, someday, someday_ …” Chat Noir’s right foot found the pedal that would let the final chord ring around him and fill up the hollows in his heart. Tears stained his cheeks and the keys of the piano, but a small smile still hung on his face. He felt better. Warm. Whole, if only for a moment. He hoped that Gabriel Agreste would succeed at the challenge he had been given. For all that he had done nothing to deserve it, Adrien wanted a proper relationship with his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YIKES I wasn't expecting the edit of this chapter to take that long. I agonized for hours over the wording for the interview.


	4. I Have Never Regretted Anything Less In My Entire Life

A few nights following Adrien’s message, the blond himself had shed Chat Noir’s uniform to sleep, but was soon woken up by a familiar thumping beneath him. He grinned one of his feline grins and whispered the command to transform, ignoring Plagg’s whining about the late hour. Chat Noir strolled over to the scene of the party in the warehouse below him, and settled in the high steel rafters, watching the rave progress. He nodded along to the music, simply enjoying the feeling of life that wafted up from the large space. Some of the life down there was intoxicated on one substance or another, sure, but it was still life and he decided to stay a while.

Chat Noir grinned. A new guy was manning the DJ platform at one end of the warehouse and damn the dude was good. He hadn’t heard a single song in the past hour that he didn’t like. Almost as if the DJ knew him. He snorted at the mere thought and peered across to get a good look. And nearly fell out of the rafters. _Nino? Since when does_ Nino _go to raves?_ He laughed out loud; this was just too damn good. 

Unfortunately, Chat Noir’s comedic timing left something to be desired. Just as he laughed his richest, loudest belly laugh, Nino had brought the music down soft so he could build to a bass drop. He balked and choked on his laughter when he realized half the club was looking at him. 

A girl in the crowd, a skinny blonde who looked like she could be related to Chloé, started waving vigorously at him. “Oh my God guys it’s Chat Noir!” she exclaimed, bouncing up and down in a way that was… a little gratuitous from his bird’s eye view. “Hey Chat Noir, why don’t you come down and join the party?”

Chat hesitated for a moment. “Ah, you see mademoiselle,” he said, “I’m rather like a lifeguard. I keep watch and only jump in the pool if a lovely lady such as yourself needs rescuing from any unscrupulous men that may be in attendance.” He bit the inside of his cheek; why did he have to get so wordy when he was nervous? It was a valid point, in his mind - he had heard Alya complaining about gross dudes at clubs enough to know that an underground joint such as this could use a bouncer, but the people seemed to want him to do a backflip off the diving board.

It was only when Nino started playing What’s New, Pussycat? that he relented. “Okay, okay, but _only_ if the good disc jockey turns off that _embarrassing_ song… _Obviously_ , my entrance music is Everybody Wants To Be A Cat,” he joked, and did a flip off the rafters, sticking the landing perfectly. He knew sticking the landing like that was bad for his joints, but that was a problem for Future Adrien. Present Chat Noir wanted to dance.

“Glad to see you joined us,” the blonde said.

“It’s okay,” added her black-haired friend, who was wearing a tight cat-themed top. “We won’t bite unless you ask us to.”

Chat smirked. How often had he imagined pulling almost that exact line on Ladybug? “Alas, Ladybug is the only woman in Paris with any biting privileges.”

“Pity,” said the blonde. “She’s lucky, though. I wouldn’t mind the opportunity to work so closely with you myself. Alicia Moreau,” she continued, sticking out a hand.

Chat raised his eyebrows slightly as he shook her hand and brushed a light kiss on her knuckles. “Moreau? Not a relative of the Bourgeois family, are you?”

Alicia grinned. “Yes, the Mayor’s wife is my Aunt Margaux. I never would have guessed that you were aware of the names of all Paris’ high society.”

_Oh, shit_. While he was much more casual than Ladybug about their secret identities, he still didn’t want anybody finding out. That information would inevitably lead back to his father, which would inevitably lead nowhere good. It wasn’t like Gabriel would sneak into his room and remove the ring while he was sleeping… but he wouldn’t put it past the man to hire somebody to do it for him. The very thought, no matter how irrational it was, put a panicked dagger in his gut and twisted it. So he turned to the other girl.

“Yasmine Gauthier.”

Chat repeated the hand shake and kiss gesture. “Enchanté.” His nervousness was starting to fade as the music and crowd pulled his anxiety out of him and transmuted it into a pleasant buzz. 

“So, are you going to dance?” Yasmine asked, getting close to him. In her acid green heels - the fashionisto in him wondered where she bought them - she was only a few inches shorter than him, and he could smell alcohol on her breath.

“Oh, I, uh, I don’t really know how to dance…”

She put her hand to her chest in dramatic shock. “Are you telling me that Chat Noir, the sexiest of all the stylish tomcats of Paris, doesn’t know how to _dance_?”

Chat scratched the back of his neck in a reflexive gesture of discomfort. “I do know how to dance, I’ve just only ever been trained in ballroom dancing.”

“Ah,” Yasmine said, nodding in understanding. “How convenient that I’m a competitive ballroom dancer,” she purred, pulling him into a formal dance position.

Chat matched her snarky grin. “I see, mademoiselle. But you’re in some pretty high heels and I like to spin my partners.”

The two fans giggled. “Okay, kitty cat,” Alicia said. “I didn’t know you were shy. Why don’t we go get you a drink?”

Chat’s smile tightened as he saw another aspect of the familial resemblance between Alicia and Chloé. “I appreciate your hospitality, but you see, it wouldn’t do for me to be, ah, partaking. It would be a tragedy if I couldn’t save your lovely selves from any interlopers because I had had too much to drink, don’t you think?”

Alicia frowned, but acquiesced. “Alright, you have a point, but Paris’ hero deserves some fun.”

Chat grinned big. “Oh, I wholeheartedly agree,” he said, and pried Yasmine off of him. While he had only been formally trained in ballroom dancing (and had taken a few years of ballet when he was very young), he had spent an embarrassing number of hours using the cavernous space of his bedroom to practice moves from every dance video on YouTube. Once he accepted the fact that people were going to stare at him no matter what he did, he started prancing about the dance floor with the fanciest footwork his skills and feline agility could offer.

The hero’s smile was genuine, if a little sheepish and embarrassed as he danced, spinning girls and guys alike, until a song he loved came on. “Hey Nino, how’d you know Avicii’s my favorite band?” he called, laughing when the DJ’s eyes widened and he immediately began shuffling through his record boxes. His steps grew wider and more confident, and he lost the look in his eyes like he was afraid of somebody walking in on him. Soon, his entire body was moving with the cheerful beat, eyes forced close by a massive smile. 

Chat Noir danced around the room like it was the most natural thing to leap into the air and spin like an ice skater, or to elicit squeals of mirth as he spun the biggest, burliest guy in the room and, just for funsies, kissed him on the cheek before leaping over his shoulders to another part of the dance floor. He wasn’t sure if it was minutes, hours, or days later, but eventually the cat found himself leaning against a wall to catch his breath, thinking _I have never regretted anything less in my entire life_. 

“Hey, Chat Noir.”

Chat looked up at the sound of his name and the conspiratory tone, and saw a brunet guy a few inches taller than himself eyeing him with a mischievous grin. “Yeah?”

“So, we’ve seen that you can dance,” the brunet said. “And we’ve seen you swing around that baton in combat. And _I_ am _very_ curious to know if you’ve ever combined the two skills," he continued, not bothering to hide that he was checking the hero out.

Chat narrowed his eyes and raised one brow, trying to figure out where the older man was going with this, and then he noticed the stainless steel pole in the opposite corner of the room. “Oh. _Oh_ ,” he said, face flushing just as it was returning to normal in the wake of his previous exertion, and he felt his cat ears twitch.

The brunet laughed. “So what do you say?”

“Uh…”

“Put it like this - I double dog dare you to pole dance for one song.”

Chat’s pupils blew wide and his ears laid back, tail thrashing. “Double _dog_ dare? Sir, do you insult my feline honor?”

The guy laughed harder. “If I say yes will you do it?”

Chat Noir gulped, thinking about the fact that Ladybug would probably castrate him if videos of him pole dancing ended up on the Ladyblog - which was inevitable. And then he considered the absolute stroke that his father would have is he found out his son had attended a rave of questionable legality and twirled around a pole in a leather catsuit. He grinned a grin that would have shamed the Cheshire Cat himself. “Oh, fuck that,” he cackled, “you couldn’t stop me if you tried!”

“Your tail’s cute kitty cat,” the brunet called from behind him as he stalked over to the pole.

“And this is all you’re seeing of it!” Chat Noir shook his head and decided that if he was going to do this, he might as well have fun with it. “NINO!” he shouted, and leaned against the pole. “I need something _sexy_ ,” he cried, bending at the knee and dramatically casting a hand to his forehead.

Nino gaped. _First this dude knows my name for no good reason and now he wants me to give him pole dancing music?_ “A’ight dude, what does our hero want for his exotic dancing debut?”

“Uh, do you have Gasoline by Halsey?” It was an unconventional pick, sure, but it was a private favorite of his. Adrien would tell Nino that he just liked the sound of it, but really he felt it perfectly described his feelings on being a model. _Okay, dude, don’t kill your own mood._

Nino nodded. “I got _everything_ dude,” he said, putting the record in its place.

Chat grinned as the slow start of the song painted the room and people started taking out cameras. The beat pulsed through his heart and with one hand, he started pulling himself up the pole, and then swung with his entire body so he was upside down, back towards the crowd, clenching the metal between his thighs. He giggled. Giving a couple hundred people the best view of his back muscles anybody had ever had was surprisingly fun. And so he started to enjoy himself.

No longer feeling any shame, he threw himself around the pole. Throughout the next three minutes he found himself in every possible pose; upside down, curled up, stretched out, doing the splits in midair with only one hand and one ankle connecting him to anything solid… He swayed from side to side, building momentum to swing up and around, before sinking down, holding his body out with only his arms. Damn, he thought to himself. He hadn’t realized his own strength until now. 

Feet on the floor, he let his right leg slip and stretch under his body and curled left leg, keeping his hands above and behind his head on the pole. He stretched luxuriously through a brief instrumental break before swinging back up, left leg curling around the pole while his right extended up to a pointed toe worthy of any great ballerino. He grinned when he noticed that the guy who had suggested this was flustered, and shot him a wink, knowing that this suit didn’t leave much to the imagination in terms of the shape of his body.

When the song finally faded away, Chat Noir came to rest again on the floor at the base of the pole, in a proposal kneel, hands clasped behind and above his head and bliss written on his closed eyes and dazed smile. He rested there for a long moment and caught his breath before standing up on slightly shaky legs. Who knew that pole dancing would be such a workout that his muscles felt like jelly? “Well, that was fun,” he said, “but I think I’m going to bed. Thanks for the suggestion,” he said, throwing the brunet another wink. 

“But Chat Noir, it’s only midnight!” somebody called from the crowed.

Chat grinned and yawned, showing off the fangs that came with his transformation. “Yes, but don’t you know cats sleep twelve to sixteen hours a day?” He ignored all further arguments and used his baton to propel himself up into the rafters and returned to his lair.

Plagg?” Adrien said sleepily after flopping onto his mattress and de-transforming.

“Yes?”

“I know you’re probably judging me straight to hell, but that was really fun, so keep it to yourself until after dawn, thanks.”

Plagg smiled as the boy fell asleep before he could even respond. Oh, he was judging, but he cared more that his charge was happy.

The next morning, Marinette was woken at some ungodly hour (nine thirty) by her phone ringing. If it had been any ringtone other than Alya’s Hall Of Fame, she would have hung up. “What?” she groaned.

“Marinette. You. _Need_. To check the Ladyblog.”

Panic shot through Marinette for a brief moment, until she realized that the excitement in her friend’s voice wasn’t _look at this video of Ladybug turning into you_. No, Alya would probably be pissed at her for not telling her if that nightmare came true. “Uh, why?”

“ _Just trust me_.” 

Marinette groaned into her phone and pulled herself out of bed. Last time Alya said those words in that tone of voice she had tried to take her skinny dipping. “Alya, it’s like six in the morning, why are you doing this to me?”

“Because I woke up an hour ago with my phone going nuts with submissions to the Ladyblog. Just look.”

“Okay, if you say so.” Marinette padded over to her computer and fired up the Ladyblog. She blinked. She blinked again. The picture was still there. She stared at it.

“Are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you see?”

Marinette’s eyebrows twisted up into the face of a tortured woman. “Why do I see Chat Noir pole dancing?”

Alya cackled. “That’s just from the end of the party. When you’re done with that video, keep scrolling. I spent literally the past hour picking out just the best shots - there were a lot of cameras on him.”

Marinette decided she didn’t need to see another two minutes of her partner swinging around a pole. Especially since she couldn’t deny that he was good at it and looked good doing it. She kept scrolling and saw that, as far as she could tell, he had danced with every person in the club. “Where even was this?”

“A makeshift nightclub in an old abandoned warehouse. Nino was invited to DJ there last night and apparently Chat Noir likes his style, because he was chilling in the rafters listening before people noticed him and convinced him to come down and party.”

“I see.” Marinette kept scrolling, and found a clip of her partner twirling a guy bigger and burlier than Adrien’s gorilla of a bodyguard, kissing him on the cheek, and leaping away. “Oh my _God_.” She watched the clip a few times, feeling a strange frustration with the cat wash through her. He was a superhero, he really shouldn’t have been behaving like this.

“Isn’t this great? I knew Chat Noir was a flirt but I _never_ would have taken him for a party boy. Do you think he goes to raves as a civilian too?” Alya gasped. “NO! He said his parents are shitty, right? What if he’s like, not allowed to have fun as a civilian so he makes up for it as Chat Noir?”

“Yeah…” Marinette kept scrolling through the pictures. Many of them, he posed for the camera, grinning like the terrible tomcat she knew and… worked with. But most were candid shots, and in those he smiled like he had never smiled before. She realized she _had_ never seen him smile like that. Even from when she first crashed into him, he was smug and flirtatious. In these pictures, he looked like he was having the best fun of his life. She almost felt bad for the scolding she was going to give him. Almost.

“Tell me when you get to the last posts from last night.”

“Okay.” Marinette scrolled to the bottom of the rave posts, shaking her head. “That was… a thing. That happened. Alya, you said he was sitting in the rafters before all of this?”

“Yeah, and he went back up into them afterwards. People are saying they saw him slip into the old warehouse manager’s office and speculating that he’s got some kind of secret den in there or something.”

Marinette nodded. “Where is this warehouse anyway?”

“In the northern part of the city somewhere. Why, are you planning to join the party?” Alya teased.

“Not on your life. I’m just curious.” She decided that she would be talking to Chat Noir about this that night and no later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can see, I moved the first scene of ch5 to here. That way the next chapter can be 100% angst train >:D


	5. Personal Experience

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG FAT TW FOR SUICIDE ATTEMPT AND DISCUSSION AT THE END OF THE CHAPTER

The night after Chat Noir’s exotic dancing debut, his partner found him hopping roofs overlooking the Seine.

“Chat Noir.”

The cat turned big green eyes on her and grinned. “Hello, My Lady. I know you’ve come to join me for a romantic picnic overlooking the river, but alas, I forgot my blanket.

Ladybug glared at him. “Would you like to explain the videos that are all over the internet?”

“You mean cat videos?” Chat Noir asked, feigning innocence as he vaulted to another roof. “Obviously they’re all over the internet because cats are adorable.”

Ladybug glared harder and followed him. “I’m talking about one specific cat in particular. Why is all of Paris talking about a video of you swinging around a pole?”

“Because I knew you’d want to see it, My Lady.”

Ladybug made a face of disgust. “Actually I didn’t - Chat, come back here! Oh you frustrating cat,” she groaned as he lept across the Seine. “Don’t run away from me when I’m talking to you, Chat Noir!” she called as she followed him. 

Chat Noir rolled his eyes. He knew it was rude, but… “You’re just going to lecture me,” he said, trying to remind himself that he had no reason to be anxious about what form her disapproval might take. 

“You’re a _hero_ , you’re supposed to be _respectable_ , and I shouldn’t have to ‘lecture’ you to remind you of it!”

Chat grimaced, purposely turning his back to her, clenching his fist so his claws dug into his palm. _Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. It’s just Ladybug. She’s not going to do anything. She doesn’t have any power over your life, she can’t do anything to you_. He bit his lip. Of course she could do something to him. If she just didn’t talk to him for a week, that would hurt just as bad as any father-induced isolation. _She’s too nice to do that, it’s fine_.

“Are you listening to me? Look at me when I’m talking to you.”

The cat glanced skyward with a _why me_ expression and turned to his partner, keeping his face even. “Yes, I’m listening to you.”

Ladybug frowned and crossed her arms. “Oh yeah? Then what was I just saying?” She only narrowed her eyes when his cat ears laid back and a low growl sounded in the back of his throat.

He knew it was completely irrational to be mad at his partner, but apparently his brain was morally against being rational. He knew she had no idea how much she sounded like his father in that moment, and he knew she wasn’t pressing that button on purpose, but how _dare_ his partner, his friend, the woman he would take a bullet for, say that? “Don’t talk to me about respect,” he spat. “If people don’t respect what I do in my free time, they never respected me in the first place. And besides that,” he said, stepping closer to her, “I don’t _give a shit_. People think I’m the noble hero of Paris? Cool. People think I’m a party boy? Cool! People think I’m just your sidekick? _Cool!_ If I cared less, I would probably drop dead.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, people do not think you’re my sidekick,” she scoffed. When her partner hissed through his teeth and backed away, shaking his head, she regretted it. “Come on, people don’t think that, do they?” 

“Yes, actually, they do,” Chat Noir growled, moving to sit on the edge of the building and stare blankly at the river. “Not that you would know anything about that,” he grumbled. 

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you wouldn’t. If this was a shitty American teen movie, you’d be that girl who’s class president and captain of the cheer squad and dating the quarterback who everybody and their dog loves. Hell, I bet in civilian life you _are_ your class president. And that’s cool, you deserve it. You deserve every bit of glory you get, I don’t blame you for not noticing that you get _most_ of it.”

Ladybug sputtered. She did get more media attention, yes, but she had always felt like she and Chat Noir were equals, and had assumed that he was okay with it. “Just because the media’s slightly more obsessed with me than with you doesn’t mean people think you’re my sidekick.” She paused. “Do… do _you_ feel like you’re just my sidekick?”

“Weren’t you just lecturing me about setting a good example to people?”

Ladybug frowned. She didn’t like the way he was avoiding her gaze and staring resolutely into the river, and she didn’t like his implication that she had been treating him like a sidekick. “You don’t really think that, do you?”

Chat snorted. “You don’t get it,” he said, shaking his head.

“Well then explain it to me,” Ladybug said as he stood and vaulted onto another roof. She certainly didn’t think of him as anything less than her equal. But… there had been so many times that he threw himself between her and danger, taking thousands of blows for her that she could handle perfectly well herself. Not for the first time, she wondered why he was so protective of her that he held no hesitation against taking ridiculous amounts of damage or putting himself in multitudes of compromising positions for her. Did he really consider her his _superior_? Was _that_ why he called her Lady? She felt sick to her stomach as she followed him. “Chat, you’re my _partner_ , not my sidekick.”

Chat Noir simply grunted. “Look, just, drop it.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m worried about you!”

Chat paused. He saw the worry in her blue eyes and shook his head. “Don’t. You don’t need to worry about me. I’m doing fine, just… just let it go, okay?”

“I…” she sighed. “Fine. I’ll drop it, but I’m still going to worry about you.”

“Just trust me. I’ll be fine,” he said, gently putting a hand on her shoulder before leaping off into the distance.

Ladybug frowned. “I _do_ trust you,” she said softly to the air. She trusted him with her life. So why didn’t he trust her with whatever baggage he was carrying around in his mind?

Chat Noir stood on the campus of La Sorbonne and cursed himself. He wanted to slip into his piano room and vent to the keys, but it wasn’t late enough. Instead, he went to the library. He had heard Plagg muttering to himself about how he was shaping up to be one of “those” black cats, and he was curious as to what he meant. The little jackass wouldn’t tell him, so he decided he would find out for himself, and went to the university’s library. He had a vague understanding that the black cat Miraculous had something to do with historical associations between black cats and bad luck, so he started in the folklore section with a book on feline legends and a book on how mythology changes and evolves over time. 

Six hours later, the sun had set and Chat Noir had taken over two tables in the library, covering them with at least twenty books, and was taking notes at a wild pace as he cross-referenced between his readings. He nearly jumped out of his skin and was barely able to suppress a yowl when a student employee at the library - the spring term still had another week - touched his shoulder. 

“I - sorry, sir,” the student stammered. “But the library’s closing soon.”

“Huh? What time is it?”

“It’s eleven o’clock at night.”

Chat Noir’s ears flattened against his head and he sighed. _That_ hadn’t been intentional. “Oh. Uh, I know I’m not a student here and that the semester’s almost over, but is it okay if I borrow these? I promise I’ll get them back by the end of the week, but I’m kind of… on the verge of a revelation, you know?”

The student looked conflicted. “That’s a lot more than we’d ever let someone check out at a time but…” he shrugged. “I guess I can make an exception for you. If the actual librarian gets mad I’m blaming you though.”

Chat smiled. “That’s fair.”

The actual librarian was a well-dressed, elderly man, who vaguely reminded Chat of a much friendlier Gabriel Agreste in terms of appearance. He raised an eyebrow and grinned at the sight of the superhero struggling to balance his stack of books. “I’m honored that the hero of Paris has elected to use my library,” he said, obviously holding back a laugh. “You’re not cramming for finals, are you, Chat Noir?”

The hero laughed. “No, sir, but I have gotten invested in some pretty interesting research here. Uh, I’m close to figuring out something important to me, and I was hoping you’d let me borrow these even though I’m not a student here. I promise I’ll have them back by the end of the week.”

“I’ll make a temporary account for you.” The librarian started working the computer, and glanced at the titles that Chat was piling on the check-out counter. “Researching yourself?” he guessed.

Chat scratched the back of his neck. “Kind of. I’m curious about other people who’ve held the title, if that makes any sense. I feel like I’m about to figure out something really important.”

“Well I do hope you’ll share your findings with me when you return.” The librarian started scanning books, and found himself more and more bemused by the titles, which ranged from religious treatises to psychological research to re-printings of medieval and older manuscripts. He couldn’t help but wonder what grand revelation the young superhero was approaching.

Chat Noir beheld his pile. “Uh, can I also borrow a bag?”

At the Dupain-Cheng bakery, Marinette paced around her room. “Tikki, do you have _any_ idea why Chat Noir is being this way?”

“He hasn’t really done anything I wouldn’t expect him to, given what I’ve seen of him since you two have been Ladybug and Chat Noir.”

Marinette groaned. “I know, but, when I asked if he felt like he was just a sidekick, the way he looked - I’ve never seen anybody look so _sad_. It was almost like he was sick with it. And I’ve never known him to be as, as _evasive_ as he’s been about Adrien. Oh, I hope Adrien’s okay…”

“I’m sure he’ll be alright, Marinette.”

“But Chat Noir… do you think I hurt his feelings somehow? Did _I_ make him feel like a sidekick? Oh my God I feel like a terrible human being,” she wailed, casting herself into her bed.

Tikki stroked her charge’s blue-black hair. “Oh, Mari, it’s alright. You didn’t say anything to hurt his feelings on purpose. Maybe he’s upset about something else.”

“But what?” What could possibly have happened to make him feel like he wasn’t her equal? What could have happened to him to put that awful, oceanic sorrow on his shoulders? She felt tears prick her eyes as she remembered the look on his face. Something in her desperately wanted to hold him. She wanted to hold him like a tiny, lost kitten and make all his hurt go away. The worst part was she had no idea how to make it better. A wave of doubt crashed over her - this wasn’t a problem her Miraculous could solve and Marinette had no idea where to begin relieving such terrible pain.

Plagg chewed his claws as Adrien set to laying out his books in the warehouse office. He was nervous, he was nervous like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rabid German Shepherds. He knew, he knew from experience that curiosity was about to kill a certain black cat he was fond of, and he knew there wouldn’t be a shred of satisfaction in it. “Hey, Adrien?”

“Yeah, Plagg?” the blond chirped, opening his notebook to continue writing down what he found.

_No why did he have to use that tone of voice oh gods fuck shit hell I’m not ready to do this again_. “Uh, just… nothing is set in stone. Keep that in mind. And history never repeats itself exactly.”

Adrien gave his kwami a head-tilted, eyebrow-raised smile. “Okay?”

It took three hours, but eventually Adrien was satisfied. He sat back and looked through his notes. He was close, he was so close, he could just feel a great new understanding right on the tip of his mind. And then the understanding hit him like an angry bull.

Plagg stifled a groan of horror as Adrien’s face grew pale, eyes grew wide, as he dropped the notebook. He shrank back as his charge turned and stared at him, mouth falling open. “A-Adrien?”

“Why?” Adrien whispered. “I…” he turned as green as his eyes and contorted wildly, twisting around so he wouldn’t vomit on the books. 

Plagg flinched at the sound of his charge’s terrible reaction. To his great shame, he looked away. For all that he carefully maintained an unfeeling persona, he simply couldn’t bare to see his young superhero - who he thought of like one of his own kittens, even if he’d never admit it out loud - like this, in a cold sweat, sobbing so hard that he couldn’t keep from retching. He clenched his eyes shut and covered his ears, trying not to think about how the child was screaming, sobbing, throwing up everything he had ever eaten, throwing up water and bile between sobs, choking and coughing on his own agony. _Adrien doesn’t deserve this_ , he thought. He should have kept the boy from stepping foot in that library, should have turned him off the trail. He should have done something, anything, so that his charge wouldn’t be here in the dark, dry retching as he struggled to breathe through the fear. Silently, Plagg cried with his young friend.

After an eternity, Adrien backed away from his own sick and collapsed on his side, whimpering. “I-I don’t… I don’t w-want that,” he squeaked. “Th-this wasn’t what I wanted,” he gasped.

“I don’t like it either,” Plagg whispered. It was the last thing he wanted for this boy, who was eager only for the freedom that the suit brought him. He would have made a good revolutionary, the tiny creature thought. The only thing the kid wanted was a life of his own, with the liberty to pursue his own happiness. He desperately hoped that their fears wouldn’t come to pass.

It was a fact known only to kwami, and only truly understood by Plagg and Tikki, that there was a reason why the black cat and ladybug Miraculous always worked together. Unchecked and unbalanced by each other, both could go out of control with ease. The black cat in particular though, was the most corruptible. Its powers went far, far beyond Cataclysm. Cataclysm as Adrien knew it but a half hour previously was a playground kick to the shins compared to its potential. Destruction wasn’t the name of the game, it was complete and utter oblivion. Cataclysm could unmake the very world, unknitting the fibers the put the universe together and bringing all of creation into void. The black cat could manipulate the flow of bad luck and cast curses on its enemies that they would never again know happiness or prosperity. Unchecked, the black cat was ruin.

There had been many black cats before Adrien. There had been many ladybugs before Marinette. Though he didn’t need all ten fingers to count them, Plagg had known more black cats than he wanted to who eventually had to be executed by their ladybugs. He didn’t need a full hand to count them, but he had had to execute black cats himself after they murdered their ladybugs. He had had to retire too many black cats too early, as the depths of their powers drove them mad, as the void looked back into them.

That’s why Tikki and Plagg had agreed all the way back in the early 1600s that they would never let their charges know the god-like depths of their powers.

Adrien Agreste was a genuinely, genuinely good person, and Plagg would give anything in the world, even himself, to ensure that he stayed that way and lived the life he deserved. For now, he curled up in one of the boy’s hands and tried to soothe him into sleep.

Chat Noir wasn’t seen for three days. For three days, Ladybug scoured the city for any sign of her partner. For three days, Paris speculated on where their hero was. For three days, Adrien Agreste wept. It took three days, but finally, Chat Noir justified his will to live.

On the third day, the savior of Paris rose again. The great cat patrolled his city in silence, breathing in the fresh air of night. As the eastern skyline began to grow light, he followed his ears to a commotion at some skyscraping hotel. A force in him smouldered when he saw a man standing at the edge of his thirtieth-floor balcony.

Paris gasped as Chat Noir balanced on the edge with the distraught man and put a hand on his shoulder.

The man shrieked and nearly lost his balance, but found Chat Noir now behind him, the hero’s silver-toed feet on either side of his own, hands clasped around his middle.

“The funny thing about falling from a great height,” the blond said quietly, mouth just behind the man’s ear, “is that at first, it feels _amazing _. The wind rushes through your hair and into your lungs and you feel more alive than you ever have before. It’s the greatest thing you’ve ever felt. And then, now that you remember what living feels like, you realize you don’t want to die. You never really wanted to die, only to live a better life, but now it’s too late. The way you scream makes you throat burn forever.”__

__The older man gulped. “W-why are you telling me this?”_ _

__“So that you understand your choices. You may step down. You can back away from this ledge and choose life. Or you can jump. And if you jump, I will follow. When you scream, I’ll make sure that you survive so that you can live.”_ _

__The man gulped again. “I hate to waste your time,” he whispered as he tipped forward._ _

__Chat Noir hissed and gripped the man tightly with his right arm while he reached for his staff with his left. They fell, and his stomach jumped to his throat as they accelerated. His eyes were starting to burn from the wind, and then came the scream of a man who wanted to live. In one smooth motion, Chat pulled the baton out and hit the button for it to stretch downward. As soon as one end hit the pavement, he wound his left leg around it and squeezed the metal between his calf and thigh to decelerate. An eternity and at least fifteen floors later, the men landed softly and safely in the street._ _

__The man trembled and turned to face the blond. “H-how did you know i-it would feel like that?” he asked as paramedics approached them._ _

__Chat Noir gazed evenly into the tearful brown eyes. “Personal experience.” He turned on his heel and walked into the night._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was hard to write. I wrote most of it while listening to Hurricane from Hamilton.  
> WOO 5 REWRITES DOWN!!


	6. What About Myself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The angst train stops for no man yo

Adrien Agreste had been missing for a month, and Chat Noir had been eerily quiet for two weeks. Ladybug was worried about this. Chat had also put on weight; his body had bulked up, his ribs were no longer visible when he stretched. Ladybug was very curious about this. She was even more curious about why he had taken to running civilian errands in costume. Chat Noir had been eerily quiet for two weeks.

One night, Ladybug found her partner lying in one of the belltowers of Notre Dame. “Chat Noir, I think we need to talk.”

Chat Noir hummed along with whatever hymn was echoing up from somewhere within the cathedral, apparently ignoring his partner.

Ladybug frowned and sat next to him. “I didn’t know you were religious.”

Chat Noir smiled. “I’m not. I just like being near the bells.”

“What do you mean?”

The cat hummed blankly, considering the question. “Well, I like the sound of church bells. And there’s something about the ones at Notre Dame, even if they’re never rung anymore. I suppose part of it is because of my mother, she taught me the names of all the bells when I was little, but there’s more to it. They’re so old and so massive that it’s like… it’s like they’re alive somehow. _What a world of solemn thought their monody compels_ ,” he quoted in English.

“I’m sorry?”

Chat smiled and translated the line. “It’s Edgar Allan Poe. The Bells. Sometimes I feel like if I could ring them, they would speak to me.”

“I didn’t know you spoke English fluently.”

“You don’t?”

“I speak English like a small child; I can understand about half of what you say and I can count to ten.”

Chat Noir laughed at the comparison. “That’s a clever analogy, My Lady.”

“Hey Chat?”

“Yes?”

“Why do you call me your Lady?”

Chat thought about it. It had been a compulsion of his ever since he first met her. A lovely pun on the name Ladybug, of course. But that wasn’t all of it. She took charge from the beginning, even though she was afraid. It had always been obvious that he was much more excited about being a superhero than she was, and he admired how she worked in spite of her fear. It was one of the first traits he had fallen in love with. Even from the beginning, he felt that he would follow her anywhere. As they got closer, and as the akumas got tougher, he came to _know_ that he would follow her anywhere. “I suppose… I suppose it’s because that’s how a knight ought to address his Lady.”

Ladybug raised an eyebrow. Did he have some kind of knight in shining armor complex about her? Was that why he put himself into such constant danger to protect her from things she could probably stand? “You think of yourself as my knight?”

Chat smiled and blushed slightly. “Yes.”

_He’s cute when he’s blushing. What?_ Ladybug made a face at herself. “Is that why you keep throwing yourself into danger on my behalf?”

“Yes.”

“You _do_ realize that it isn’t necessary, right?”

“...Yes.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?”

Chat Noir was silent for a long time. “Because you’re great,” he said softly. “I mean that in the original sense, like Alexander the Great.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. “Then don’t you think I can take care of myself?”

Chat’s eyes widened. “No, of course you can, My Lady,” he said, smiling like a lovesick puppy. “I haven’t a doubt in my mind that you can take care of yourself. But you’re too great for me to take the risk.”

“But what about yourself?”

“What about myself?”

Blue eyes locked on green. “I appreciate that you want to protect me, but you end up throwing yourself into unnecessary danger to do so.”

Chat Noir rolled his eyes. “Oh, My Lady, if the world had to lose one of us it would be much better off losing me than you.”

“... _What_?!” 

_Shit! Shit what did I say?_ Chat shrank back when he saw how his partner recoiled. “D-did I say something wrong?”

“Do you really think you’re not as important as me?” Ladybug asked in a pained half-whisper.

“Oh! It sounds bad when you put it that way,” he said, chuckling to himself. “I _know_ I’m important, My Lady. You’re just more important.”

Ladybug stared at the blond, at his calm expression. How could he say something like that so casually? “Chat Noir, what is _wrong_ with you?” She immediately realized that this was the wrong thing to say when his ears laid back and his pupils got wide and he backed away.

“I-I don’t understand, is something the matter?” Chat felt his face flush and a cold sweat break out on his forehead. This anxiety was horrible and familiar: the one that happened when he didn’t _know_ what he did wrong.

One of Ladybug’s eyes twitched. “ _YES!_ Yes something is the matter! How could you say something like that?”

Chat felt his heart leap into his throat and tears prick at his eyes. “Ladybug, please, what did I say?” he begged, wracking his brain to work out what he had said to offend her. Was it from two weeks ago when he had snapped at her when she was lecturing on respectability? “I’m sorry, I’m sorry for whatever I said, but please, tell me what it was so I don’t say it again!”

Ladybug realized suddenly that she had stood up, and was towering over her partner while he cowered, tears glittering in the corners of his eyes. “Oh _God_ Chat Noir.” She sank to her knees next to him with sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry for yelling at you,” she said softly. “Who on Earth let you think I was more important than you?”

“But it’s true. You’re the only one who can purify akumas.”

Ladybug stared at him, and looked him in the eyes. “Oh, you stupid, _stupid_ cat,” she groaned, wrapping her arms around him.

“Are you mad at me?” the blond asked in a tiny voice.

“No.”

“Should I leave?”

“ _Hush_."

Chat frowned and sank into his Lady’s hug. Her hair smelled of pastries and coconut shampoo. Her embrace was warm and strong. When he felt that she didn’t intend to let go of him, he wrapped his arms around her back and let himself hide his face in her shoulder. And then he felt her hand in his hair.

Ladybug had gone to stroke the back of his head as a reflex, and was surprised when he instantly started purring. A factoid came to her mind that cats purred when they were in distress to calm themselves down and she wailed internally. What _terrible, despicable_ person let her silly tomcat think he wasn’t as important as she was? _Who hurt you?_ She wanted to ask. _Who told you that? Who do I need to beat up?_ When he started to sniff, she gently rocked him back and forth, stroking his hair. “It’s okay, chaton,” she murmured. “You’re okay…”

Chat Noir crumbled under her soft words. He squeezed himself as close to his partner as possible, pressing his head back against her hand, and started crying in earnest. 

Ladybug bit her lip as the young hero’s shoulders shook, fighting back her own tears. Since when did Chat Noir cry like that? How much had he been hiding from her? _How much had she just not noticed?_ “Oh, Chat… what’s happened to you?”

The crying cat just cried harder. There was so much he wanted to tell her. There was so much anger and sadness and hurt inside him that he would kill to let out. Years of emotional turmoil at the hands of his father were twisted up with his new terror of the darker sides of his powers and all he wanted was to be free of it. All he wanted was to tell her how lonely he was, how afraid he was of his future, about all the nights he had gone to bed crying and hungry, because there were no therapists for superheroes, because his model’s diet didn’t account for the exertion that came with being a superhero.

He knew that she would listen. Ladybug was nothing if not kind and compassionate, he knew that she would listen to him, but he still couldn’t tell her. He had been taught that his anxiety was a shameful flaw and he didn’t know how to unbelieve that, and it had ruined him. No matter how much he wanted to tell her his fears, he didn’t know how. Some malevolent part of himself told him that she didn’t want to be burdened with his emotional baggage anyway. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Ladybug leaned back and looked at him. “What do you have to be sorry for, minou?” she asked, gently tilting his face up with a finger under his chin.

Chat Noir closed his eyes. Some insane voice in his head - his own, of course - told him he didn’t deserve to look at her, and even more insane, he believed it. “For c-crying all over you, M-my Lady.” He backed away, wiping his eyes. “I’m supposed to protect you, n-not snivel on your s-shoulder.”

That was what broke down Ladybug’s wards, and tears spilled from her eyes. “Chat, I don’t expect you to do anything. I don’t expect you to protect me, it’s okay.”

The logical part of his brain knew that this was a good thing. She only expected him to be okay, he was allowed to cry in front of her if that got him closer to being okay! The majority of his brain took it to mean that she didn’t expect him to amount to anything, that competency from him would be a surprise. “I should go…”

“No, you shouldn’t,” Ladybug insisted, pulling him back to her. “Chat Noir, you are _so_ much more to me than a knight or a bodyguard. Do you understand that?”

The big green eyes blinked a few times, trying to figure out the right answer. His distraction gave his more lucid self a chance to speak. “No.”

Even though she knew it was the real answers, the heroine still wasn’t prepared for it to actually come out of her partner’s mouth. She shook her head as she cried. “Chat, Chat _why_? Why don’t you think you’re important?”

“I’m not in the habit of it.” Chat looked down at his lap. He was telling the truth and it hurt him to know that it was hurting his favorite person. Any attempt to lie would hurt her too, and he wished desperately that he was less of a fuck up so he could come out of this without doing so. “I’m sorry.”

“Chat, you don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“This is hurting you.”

“And you’re hurting!” She pursed her lips. “Chat Noir, who’s hurting you? Who’s letting you think you’re not important?”

“My father,” he said honestly.

“Well your father is a filthy, evil liar and you should never listen to anything he tells you. You are so important, okay?” She tried to bring him to face her, and frowned when he refused to. “Look at me,” she urged. When he did, she poured her entire soul into the eye contact she held with him. “I need you, Chat Noir. Not to protect me. I need you to be my equal. I need you to be my _partner_ , not my subordinate. Do you understand that?”

Chat’s green eyes searched Ladybug’s blue, and a timid smile lit his face. _She’s telling the truth. She wants me as her equal_. “Yes, My Lady,” he breathed. 

Ladybug smiled. “You don’t need to call me that, my silly cat,” she said, scratching behind one of his cat ears. 

“I know, but I like to,” he said, closing his eyes and purring, pressing his head up against her fingers. “That feels nice,” he murmured. He purred and purred and allowed his partner to pull him down so his head laid in her lap while she scratched behind his ears with one hand and rubbed his back with the other.

“Where are you staying, kitty cat?”

“I’ve got a bed.”

“Do you live with your father?”

“...”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. “Chat, where are you staying?”

“I don’t want to leave yet.”

She sighed. “Okay.”

They sat together for a while, silence broken only by Chat Noir’s rumbling purr. “Hey, Chat?”

“Hm?”

“What did you say to that man who you saved?”

Chat Noir was quiet, trying to work out how to answer without lying and without worrying her. “I told him that he could back away or he could jump, and either way I would make sure he lived.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. “I read the news reports. You said something about personal experience?” Realization dawned on her. “Chat, did you ev-”

“I don’t want to talk about it!” Chat said quickly. He looked up at her and kissed her hand. “I don’t want you to worry about me like that. You - You don’t need to, anymore.”

“Anymore?”

Chat Noir cringed and sat up. “Just…” he sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please,” he added, seeing that she was about to speak.

“...Okay.” She squeezed his hand. “You know I’m going to worry about you anyway, right?”

Chat smiled. “Of course, My Lady.” _That’s one of the thousands of reasons why I love you._

“So, where are you staying?”

“You know the warehouse where that party was?”

“I don’t know where it actually is but yeah.”

“I have a set up in what used to be the manager’s office.”

“Are you alone?”

The blond laid his ears back and pulled his knees up. He nodded.

The black-haired superhero sighed. “You don’t deserve to be all alone. I suppose that’s why you’ve been in costume all the time? To avoid being recognized by your father?”

_Nod nod_. The cat yawned.

Ladybug smiled. “Oh, poor Chat Noir, you’ve had a long day,” she cooed. “Let’s get you to bed.”

An hour later, Marinette sighed as she curled up in bed. She had escorted her partner to the warehouse where he was squatting and may or may not have mothered him. She couldn’t even begin to describe how worried she was for him. He had spent God knows how long crying on her shoulder, and then, as she hopped roofs with him, he spent God knows how long apologizing for raising his voice at her in that one moment weeks ago.

Eventually, she fell into an uneasy sleep, but was soon woken up by a commotion outside. She looked out the window and saw Chat Noir in the street, battling an akumatized villain. Immediately, not caring that she had barely gotten a lick of sleep, she gave the command to transform and leapt into the street to join her partner.

Judging by his choice of weapon, this villain was an archer. Thanks to the sheer volume of arrows, the two heroes didn’t have a chance to strategize with each other. Worse: the arrows exploded at unpredictable times. Ladybug called for her Lucky Charm, but before it could materialize, she was tackled to the ground by Chat Noir. “Chat, what are-”

The battlefield went silent to Ladybug’s ears. Everything in her peripheral vision faded to a nausea-inducing miasma. Chat Noir was on top of her, and an arrow had pierced all the way through his abdomen. She was aware of the charge on the arrowhead blinking, but her eyes were locked on the blond’s face. His eyes were closed, his face solemn. There was an explosive arrow sticking through his body and not a sign of pain in his expression. He had completely accepted that he was going to die for her. He looked like he was sleeping...

The blinking suddenly accelerated, and Ladybug started to scramble away, but it was too late. Chat Noir would die in vain, and their only hope was that their Miraculous might be destroyed in the blast.

Marinette screamed, jerking upright in bed. She screamed until she ran out of breath - no words, simply a solid screech of terror and pain. Her chest heaved as she hyperventilated, and she was vaguely aware of her parents storming up the stairs to her attic bedroom.

“Marinette, what happened?” her father demanded, brandishing a rolling pin. “Did somebody get in here?”

The girl shook her head as she cried uncontrollably. “I h-had a n-n-nightmare…” She curled up and sobbed into her knees because she knew that it was something that that stupid cat would do. That peaceful expression didn’t belong on a man who knew he was about to die and it was burned into her mind’s eye.

Her parents stayed to comfort her, only leaving to acquire tissues and cookies, until she had calmed down. She declined to tell them the details of the terrible vision, but when they left, she immediately went to the Ladyblog.

“Marinette?” Tikki said softly, the little red creature floating up near her head. “What did you dream about?” She glanced at the screen and frowned.

Marinette had never seen that peaceful death mask before as far as she remembered, but Alya’s camera had a better memory than she did. She scrolled through the sidebar listing villains they had faced, praying to any god that would listen that the expression haunting her was a figment of her imagination. 

Dislocoeur was the most recent fight where Chat Noir had sacrificed himself for her. And to her horror, she found herself looking at Chat Noir embracing Ladybug in the moment between taking one of the Dark Cupid’s arrows and succumbing to its effects. 

Tikki’s frown deepened when she saw the picture. “Marinette, what was that nightmare about?” She listened as the girl recounted the dream, and nodded. 

“A-and, his face, it was that face,” Marinette finished, pointing a shaky finger at the picture. She closed browser, shaking her head furiously. She didn’t want to see that. Not in the dream, not in real life, not ever again. She choked on a sob as she fell back into bed, and cried into her pillow. How could Chat Noir care so little for his own well-being that he just accepted any horrible torture to protect her? She shuddered from the absolute wrongness of it all and slipped back into a thankfully dreamless sleep.


	7. What is it Like in His Shoes?

It was an impulse buy. Nothing more, nothing less. Chat Noir would justify it, saying that the money he was using to survive would run out eventually and he needed to eat, but really the fifty euro battery-powered rechargeable electric piano was an impulse buy.

Playing the fifty euro battery-powered rechargeable electric piano in front of the Eiffel Tower was a wonderful impulse. In two hours, Chat Noir managed to make back the money on the piano playing a mixture of French and American pop songs, as well as a few popular and well-known classical tunes. He was sitting at his bench, which had been included in the sale price of the piano, taking a water break when a very tiny American tourist approached him with a couple euros from her mother and what looked like Google Translate open on her mother’s phone. 

“Est cee coo vous say des chansons dee Aristocats?”

Chat Noir grinned. Sounding it out as best as she knew, the child had completely mangled the French language and he thought it was adorable. “Why yes, I do know songs from _The Aristocats_ ,” he said in perfect, if accented English. He put down his overpriced ice water and positioned himself back into perfect posture and laid his fingers across the keys. He took in a deep breath and tensed to start playing… and then sat back and cracked his knuckles. He went back to the keys… and relaxed to roll his neck and move his tail off the bench. He went through this ritual a few more times, moving his water bottle on top of the piano and then back off, adjusting the bench, until the child and most of the rest of his audience were laughing. Finally satisfied that his antics had taken effect, he started playing for real, singing, “ _oh, everybody wants to be a cat_ …” 

“Damn, he’s actually really good,” Nino said approvingly, moving closer to the hero in the middle of the square. “I wonder where he learned.” He glanced over when Alya punched him and rolled his eyes at her shushing him with the hand that wasn’t working her camera. “Okay Madame Journalist Lady, whatever you say.”

Nino, Alya, and Marinette had been passing through on the way to Alya’s house, and Alya couldn’t not stop to film. Marinette didn’t mind; this was an entirely new side to her partner, though she supposed that Ladybug had never given him much of a chance to show it. She smiled at how he swayed with the beat and shimmied his shoulders as he sang. _Of course Chat Noir knows The Aristocats_.

Nino and Marinette followed Alya closer to the musician, and Nino giggled when he overheard the small child who had initiated this squeal, “ _mama, his tail moves like a real cat’s_!”

“What’s so funny?” Marinette asked.

Nino translated the little tourist’s commentary and smiled when the girls laughed. Nodding along with the jazzy beat, he watched Chat Noir play. The dude was trying to manage several different instrumental lines with just two hands and had taken on whistling the main trumpet part, but he was actually doing well. The frenzy of his fingers racing around the keyboard was familiar somehow - he was actually reminded just a little of Adrien, with whom he had shared many a quality jam session. 

That kid could _play_. The second his blond friend hit the bench, he turned into a completely different person, all grins and wit, completely different from the reserved young gentleman he had first introduced himself to. Actually, the version of Adrien that existed at the piano was very similar to Chat Noir, all the way down to the egregious puns. _No wonder he’s crashing at Chat’s place, they’re practically twins. Unless they’re the same person_ … Nino laughed at himself. _Nah. Even pianist!Adrien isn’t that much of a flirt_ , he thought as the superhero winked at Marinette and Alya.

Marinette couldn’t help being enamored with watching her partner - the frenetic movement of his hands was captivating, and the way he smiled like he was having the time of his life was just a little bit adorable. When he turned and winked at her and Alya, she was shocked to feel herself blush. She was immediately distracted from thinking about her reaction by a sudden shift in the tone of the song, and the cat somehow managed to imitate a harp with the piano. 

Chat smiled when he noticed Alya’s jaw drop when he pitched his voice all the way up to the soprano range to urge an imaginary trumpet player to “ _blow a little soul into the tune_ …” and batted his eyes. He knew his vocal cords would demand revenge later on, but for now he switched smoothly between male and female lines. “ _The other cats will all commence, congregatin’ on the fence beneath the alley’s only light - where every note is out of sight_ …” The shift from tenor to soprano was nearly effortless, and the final syllable rang through the square with the kind of vibrato that made it sound as soft as clouds looked. He caressed the keyboard like a lover, pulling out the final chord, and was suspended there for a moment, hands floating above the keys, eyes closed, open-mouthed smile lighting his face.

For a moment, the square was silent, and every mind floated in the sound.

Chat Noir’s right hand fell back to the keyboard with a loud trumpet line, and his left hand joined up soon thereafter. He threw his head from side to side, flipping his bangs in every direction, singing, “ _Everybody, everybody, everybody wants to be a cat!_ ” The audience started clapping with the beat, and he felt that energy like a shot of caffeine to his very soul. He raised his face to the sun and sang like it was his favorite thing in the world - because it was. He kept up the refrain until he was out of breath, and finished with an improvised and, if he did say so himself, highly technical and complex piano solo. With a final crash that gave the effect of symbols, it seemed wildly inappropriate that nobody was doing jazz hands.

“Hey Chat Noir, where did you learn how to play the piano?” Alya asked.

Chat grinned. “I would tell you, my friend, but it might go towards revealing my civilian identity and I gotta stay _one jump ahead of the lawman, one swing ahead of the press_ ,” he ad-libbed, winking. “Alya Césaire, thank you. I have been waiting for so long to make that joke, and you have given me the opportunity.” He clasped her hand in both of his and shook it vigorously. “You are truly a gift.”

“Oh, you flatter me. Can you tell the Ladyblog about some of your musical inspirations?”

“You wanna jam sometime?” Nino asked.

Chat Noir put a hand to his heart. “My favorite journalist asking about my musical inspirations and my favorite DJ asking for a jam session? I must be dreaming,” he said, smiling to himself at how Nino _beamed_ at being called his favorite DJ. “I am absolutely down to jam.” He sealed the deal with a fist bump. Whenever Adrien had a few hours free, his absolute favorite place was the upright piano in Nino’s living room.

All too soon, however, the jovial mood was interrupted by a limousine pulling up to the square. A silver-haired man all too familiar to the cat stepped out, and approached the piano, flanked by bodyguards. “Chat Noir,” he greeted sternly.

“Gabriel Agreste,” the hero responded, matching the man’s chilly tone.

“You know where my son is.”

“I do.”

“Tell me where he is.”

The cat shook his head. “I’m a man of my word, Monsieur Agreste, and I have given my word not to directly reveal Adrien’s whereabouts.” He thought for a moment. “But, I suppose I can give you a hint.”

The older man looked for a moment like he wanted to yell at him, but his expression softened. “Fine,” he groaned, running a hand down his face.

Chat Noir did nothing.

One of Gabriel’s eyes twitched. “Well?”

“ _Well_ , when one requests something from a street musician, the proper etiquette is to drop a euro or two in the musician’s tip container,” Chat Noir said, nodding to the upturned bowler hat.

“You’re not serious.”

“I am serious as the grave, Monsieur. This bowler hat is feeding Adrien just as much as it’s feeding me.”

Gabriel growled something incomprehensible and dropped a few euros in the hat.

“So Adrien tells me you’ve both seen the musical _Hamilton_?”

The designer’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”

“Who’s Adrien’s favorite character?”

“What?” The man’s eyebrows were twisted upwards and his mouth contorted into a confused sneer. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Guess, if you don’t know.”

Gabriel hissed. “Hamilton?”

“Mulligan, actually. I’m sure you see the humor in the fact that a fashion designer’s son’s favorite character is a tailor’s apprentice. Now, who does he _identify_ with the most?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“To help you, Monsieur. Giving you a little context so this hint helps you a little more. And, I suppose, because I want to illustrate the fact that you don’t even talk to your son, let alone listen to him. So, who in the musical _Hamilton_ does Adrien Agreste identify with the most?”

“Just… Just get to the damn hint.”

“The answer is Burr. Just for funsies, I’ll also tell you that I’m the Hamilton to his Burr, but that’s another story for another time,” he said as he played the opening line of Wait For It.

Marinette nudged Nino. “What song is this?” She opened her phone and searched for a translation of the lyrics, and raised an eyebrow what she read. _Love doesn’t discriminate between the sinners and the saints_ … she wondered vaguely if this chorus somehow described Chat Noir’s feelings about Ladybug. 

Through the first verse and chorus, Chat Noir had kept his eyes on the keyboard, watching his own hands carry the ensemble lines, but come the second verse, about Burr’s family legacy, he raised his head and locked eyes with his father. 

Gabriel shivered. Between the slitted pupils and green sclerae, the hero’s eyes were unnerving. And then there was something just familiar enough about them to make him extremely uncomfortable - that gaze was at the darkest depths of uncanny valley. He supposed the lyrics fit their family though; Léonie was considered a genius in her field, and he commanded respect, and of course he expected Adrien to protect the family legacy.

This was one of Chat’s favorite songs from the show, and he sang it on a regular basis, but the chorus about death came out with a new reverence in light of his recent revelation. If he allowed himself to lose control, he could and would destroy everything he loved. Odds were that he would die a young, heroic death, and if he didn’t, he would die a villain, and so there was a whole new rush in the idea of living anyway.

“ _I am the one thing in life I can control!_ ” Chat Noir insisted. “ _I am inimitable, I am an original!_ ” Fresh determination flamed in his mind. He would separate himself from the legacy of his family and of his title. “ _I’m not falling behind or ,running late. I’m not standing still, I am lying in wait!_ ” 

Marinette was struck by the look on her partner’s face. His eyes seemed to gleam unnaturally, and there was a wild look on his face, like the one he made when he was about to do something flashy and risky in battle. He had said that Adrien likened him to Alexander Hamilton, so in a way, now he sang about himself. What endless uphill climb was he facing?

Separating himself from his legacies would be difficult. And it would be worth it. He would prove that he was worth his life.

Marinette figured it was a truth that Chat Noir’s pace was relentless. He was constantly moving, he had to at the very least be tapping his fingers on something. She had actually wondered multiple times if he had ADHD. And for all that he loved to tell Ladybug the most recent terrible puns, he wasn’t one to waste time. As far as she could tell, he didn’t believe in peaceful, idle evenings, preferring to patrol alone for hours. Ladybug had asked him a few times why he did it, but he only ever answered with cryptic comments. 

And then one night he gave Marinette the answer to that question. She had been unable to sleep - a common condition since getting her Miraculous - and Chat was passing by. He sat on her balcony for two hours until she was able to go to bed, and had actually given her some good advice. She had come to understand that for Chat Noir, helping people through mundane worries was just as important a part of his heroic duty as fighting akumas.

_What is it like in his shoes?_

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed as Chat Noir started singing the verse about Hamilton. This ‘hint’ he was getting was full of unnecessary symbolism. Adrien was Burr, Chat was Hamilton. This song was about Burr’s jealousy towards Hamilton… Was Adrien jealous somehow of Chat Noir? The black cat certainly didn’t believe in restraint; during the Jackady incident he didn’t seem to have a single problem yelling at one of the most respected men in Paris. Surely that wasn’t a trait that Adrien admired. He frowned. _Surely that wasn’t an opportunity Adrien envied_. The boy had inherited his mother’s emotional nature but… He went pale and swallowed hard. He stayed impressively calm on the outside, but his inner monologue immediately devolved into a string of profanity. 

_He takes and he takes and he takes_ …

Marinette wondered about that lyric - did Adrien think of Chat Noir with the same… reverence? that he thought of such forces as love and death? Surely not, Chat Noir was a giant dork. But then, he was a giant dork who wielded the power of an at least five thousand year old fairy thing. The black studs on her ears suddenly felt a lot heavier.

The ring on Chat Noir’s finger was still heavy from what he had learned. But now he found himself ready to start making peace with the weight. Few previous black cats seemed to have survived the knowledge he held, but he would thrive. “ _I’m willing to wait for it_.” Life didn’t discriminate, and it would take and take and take both him and Adrien... somewhere. “ _We rise! And we fall!_ ” And if there was a reason he was still alive, he was willing to keep living and find out what it was.

Chat Noir pulled the final chord from the piano and let out a breath as he pulled his mind and soul back out of the melodious trance he had been in. 

“What was that?” Gabriel demanded.

“Your hint. Think about it.”

“I don’t appreciate your attitude,” the man snarled.

“I don’t appreciate your presence,” Chat Noir shot back. “I’ve given you your hint. _Think about it_.” His tone was harsh, but when he stared down his father, his eyes begged him to _understand. Understand dammit, that Adrien is suffocating. Understand that you have spent the past six years killing me_. He swallowed the lump in his throat as the man huffed, turned, and went back to his limousine. He shook his head and noticed a light blinking on the piano. With another breath, his friendly Chat Noir bravado was back. “And on that note, my friends, I do believe I shall be making my leave,” he said, turning the instrument off and folding the legs to pack it into its case. “My partner here needs her rest.”

“Why did you choose that song as a hint?” Alya asked.

Chat smiled sadly at the camera. “Music is the language of the soul, you see. Adrien and his father saw _Hamilton_ together on Broadway last year, and there is some… tension… between them over that day. I can’t tell you any more than that without basically spoon feeding Gabriel the answer. And the song works. Adrien and I…” He sighed. “I’m everything Adrien wishes he could be. I really am the Hamilton to his Burr. I don’t think we’ll ever end up in a duel,” he mused with a wry grin, “but still. The comparison is there.” He wondered if Adrien would one day kill him in some symbolic way.

Alya sensed that she was stepping too close to some boundary, so she tried to change the tone. “So… if you’re Hamilton, is Ladybug Angelica or Eliza?”

Chat Noir laughed. “Ladybug is George Washington. Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t have long before my throat begins to demand reparation for those octave jumps in _Aristocats_.”

“Your voice is lovely,” Marinette said honestly, after Alya turned her camera off. She had never guessed that the pun-cracker extraordinaire could sing so beautifully.

Chat smiled even bigger, a genuine beam that took up half his face and made his eyes crinkle. “Thank you.”

As the hero walked off, Alya elbowed Marinette in the side. “You seemed pretty enamored with his performance,” she teased. “Are you more of a Chat Noir fan than you’re letting on?”

“What? No! I’m just… interested in his choice of song.” It wasn’t a total lie, she was curious about it. She made a mental note to listen to the _Hamilton_ soundtrack when she got home. But a small part of her did admit that the way he completely gave himself to his music, the way his very soul seemed to light up when he sang, was rather beautiful.

Unseen, Tikki chewed her lip as she contemplated what had just happened. Plagg’s charges always had a flair for the theatrical and symbolic, and she had a distinct feeling that Chat Noir had learned what she and her counterpart had been hiding for four hundred years. She _really_ needed to talk to him sometime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mari has a cru-ush, Mari has a cru-ush~  
> I'll probably expound on the likeness between Adrien and Burr and Chat and Hamilton later on throughout the fic.  
> Did you really think Chat's favorite Disney movie isn't The Aristocats?


	8. And I Trust You With Mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BIG FAT TW FOR RAPE MENTION

For Wednesday night patrol, a couple days after Chat Noir’s performance, Paris’ heroes met as they always did at Notre Dame. Today, when Ladybug got there, Chat Noir was sitting on one arm of the cross at the top of the cathedral. She sat on the other arm and was silent for a moment. The view from here, one of the highest historic points in the city, was indeed beautiful.

“So I’m George Washington, huh?”

Chat smiled to himself. “But of course. You’re a great leader and fighter, and I’m your right hand man. I would follow you into any hopeless war without hesitation, My Lady.”

Ladybug nodded. “I see. I would have hoped you’re not _lining up to put me up on a pedestal_ …”  
Chat stared at his partner and squeaked a little bit. “You just referenced the musical that got me into musicals.”

“I did.”

He gave a sly grin. “You don’t speak English very well. If you were able to quote that so well, that means that you’ve been listening to the soundtrack a _lot_.”

Ladybug pursed her lips. She had. Not only had she done that, she had called Alya to gush for a good forty minutes about it. Not that she would admit it to Chat, and she didn’t have to, thanks to a familiar scream from across town. “Duty calls.”

As one being, the team launched themselves off the building and towards the commotion. It was at a prison, far across at the edge of town, where a woman with snakes for hair seemed to be trying to break _in_. They paused for a moment on top of a building across the street to watch as she turned guards to stone. 

“Do you think that’s the girl who’s rapist only got like a month in prison?” Ladybug speculated.

“Her uncle, no less,” Chat Noir murmured.

“I don’t really want to fight her.”

“Nor do I.” He considered their options for a moment, and came up with an idea. “But I don’t think we’ll have to.”

“What? But the akuma-”

 

“She’ll give it over.”  
Ladybug looked at her partner like he was insane. To her surprise, his manic _I’m about to do something incredibly reckless and stupid_ look was absent. He was… strangely grim, actually. “And how do you expect to get her to give it over?”

Chat Noir turned around, so he was facing his own shadow, and closed his eyes. “Just trust me, and stay here. You’ll need to be able to purify it when I release it.” He took a deep breath and held out his hands. As he had started to come to terms with the nature of his powers, he had started practicing with them. He felt a familiar coolness as he drew his shadow up to his face, where the solidified into a black mask. From behind the barrier, he smiled. 

Ladybug’s eyes widened. “When did you learn how to do that?” She noticed that his cat ears were swiveling about in a way they never had before. “Can you _see_ under that mask?”

“No. My hope is that she’ll be more likely to trust me if I can’t see her. Not to mention that we can’t make eye contact so she can’t turn me to stone. _Stay here_ ,” he ordered, and then slid down his staff to the ground. In the street, Chat Noir worked out where the angry girl was and cleared his throat. “Lady Medusa,” he addressed. “I have come to propose a deal.”

The woman hissed as loud as her snakes and turned on the cat, and was surprised that he didn’t turn to stone. “I don’t want any part of your deal!” she snarled.

“You have no reason to,” Chat said evenly. He pressed a button on his baton so it shrank to its carrying size, placed it on the ground, and lightly kicked it so it rolled to a stop at Medusa’s feet. “But I can help you get your revenge more thoroughly and more efficiently.”

The young woman’s face softened into an image of confusion. “Why? I thought you and Ladybug were here to to take away this power.”

“Perhaps, but is what Hawkmoth doing to you so desirable? He’s giving you power now, yes, but for what cost? Is the privacy of your mind really worth powers that are temporary anyway? He doesn’t want to help you any further than he has to to get you to take our Miraculous, and be it by force or by will, Ladybug and I get the akuma from you and undo everything you’ve done today. _However_ , I have powers that can be a little more… _permanent_. That won’t be undone by Ladybug’s restoration spell.”

Ladybug furrowed her brows. What the _hell_ did that mean? She didn’t even know it was possible to do anything that she couldn’t undo. Surely there wasn’t. He had to be bluffing… except, while she couldn’t see his face, he didn’t sound like he was bluffing.

“You’ll help me get revenge.”

“Yes.”

“And it’ll be _permanent_?”

“Yes.”

The slightest smile lit the woman’s face. “How?”

“You’ve seen my Cataclysm power, yes?”

“Yes.”

Chat Noir sucked in a breath through his teeth, hesitating. To say it out loud would solidify it as truth. But it had to be done. “What you’ve seen is the schoolchild’s version of that power. The destructive forces I can wield go much further than convenient rusting and electrical failures. I can change the flow of luck,” he explained. “I can’t take him to a new trial or change his sentence, but I can _ruin_ him. I can ensure that he will never know good fortune again. He will live out his days in misery and he will live knowing that he brought it on himself.” He tensed when he heard the woman talking to Hawkmoth. Of course the mind-controlling bastard would get in his way… 

“Hawkmoth says that nobody’s wielded that kind of power in four hundred years.”

Chat Noir raised an eyebrow. So Hawkmoth studied Miraculous history, huh? That was probably a useful tidbit, but he would save it for later. “That’s true. The black cat Miraculous has had hundreds of users before myself, you see. Four hundred years ago, one of my predecessors… well. Let’s just say that there aren’t any direct accounts of what happened. The entity that gives me my powers decided that it was too dangerous to tell his heroes what we’re capable of.

“I figured it out. It wasn’t a pleasant revelation, but I swore to myself that I would use what I have for good.”

“You actually consider getting revenge for this a good cause?”

“Of course.”

“And all I have to do is hand over the ring?”

“That’s right.”

Medusa smiled like she had just seen sunlight for the first time in years. “Thank you, Chat Noir,” she said, pulling off her serpent ring and pressing it into his hand. 

Right on cue, Ladybug leapt into the street and retrieved the ring from her partner, snapped off the little metal snake’s head, and put everything right as it was. She narrowed her eyes and turned to face Chat Noir as he dispelled the mask, but he ignored her in favor of going to the girl’s side.

“Do you remember what just happened?” Chat asked, even though he knew the answer.

“N-no. Why?”

“Well, we made a deal while you were akumatized. You handed over your ring with the akuma in it, and in return, I’m willing to help you get a revenge that Ladybug can’t undo.”

“Chat, what are you about to do?” Ladybug asked, absently passing the ring back to the former akuma and glaring at her partner.

“I’m about to keep my word,” Chat said evenly. “Your name’s Camille, right?”

Camille, who was only about a year older than himself, nodded.

“The power I use sometimes, Cataclysm, it has multiple different forms. I can use it in a way where it bends the flow of good and bad luck so that whoever I apply it to will never know good fortune again. I can’t change his sentence or force a new trial, but I can make sure that his life will be utterly ruined when he leaves prison. He will live out his days in misery and he’ll know that he brought it on himself.” He paused and let the understanding sink in. “If you want me to. Hawkmoth’s powers tend to bring out the darker parts of ourselves that we don’t really want to give any authority to. If you want to show mercy to your attacker, then that’s what he’ll get.”

“I… I think I need to see him before I can figure out if I want that or not.”

“That’s fair.”

“Chat, you can’t be serious.”

Chat Noir looked at his partner. “I am completely serious.”

“You can’t do that to someone.”

“I do believe I can. I don’t believe in mercy for people who hurt the children in their care. If you do, maybe you’re a better, nobler person than me, but I gave my word and I intend to keep it.”

“It’s cruel,” Ladybug insisted.

“Is it really any more cruel than what he did?” Chat pursed his lips at her hesitance. “My Lady, it’s very obvious that you have a proper family. I wouldn’t wish abusive parents on Hawkmoth himself, but you need to understand that it’s hell. Being afraid of the people who are responsible for feeding and housing you, and who have legal control over you, is _hell_. You might think that cursing this man is an abuse of power, I see it as levelling the playing field. I hope you can forgive me,” he said grimly, and turned to Clarisse. “Let’s go for a visit.”

Ladybug stood in the middle of the street and watched the two retreat into the prison, where Chat Noir was undoubtedly negotiating their way. The beeping of her earrings wouldn’t let her linger, so she retreated back home. “Tikki,” she said when she landed in her room and dropped the transformation, “we need to talk.”

“I never thought a superhero would take my side on this,” Camille said softly as they made their way through the brick and mortar building. “Honestly, I never thought I’d even get that bastard into court, let alone get an actual sentence.” She looked at the black-suited figure next to her. “Why are you taking my side with this?”

Chat Noir shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because it’s a seventeen-year-old girl’s word against a respected adult’s.”

Chat smiled ruefully. “I understand the feeling. My civilian self lives in a cage, but alas, it’s a gilded one so he can’t do much about it.”

“Why do you refer to your civilian self as a separate person?”

“Because he is a separate person. He’s a shell, twisted and shrunk down to fit in the gilded cage. Between the two of us, my civilian self is the one in the mask, not me.”

Camille nodded as they were led to sit in one of the interview rooms while a guard retrieved her abuser. “This is the first time I’ve seen him face to face since the trial.”

Chat’s ears laid back at the fear in her voice. “It’ll be fine. He can’t hurt you with me here, and there will be guards right outside the door,” he said soothingly. He gave her a warm smile, and then fixed his eyes on Valentin Legrand. 

The man in handcuffs gulped as he sat down across from the pair. “Uh, Camille, my dear, are you-”

“I am _not_ your dear,” the girl hissed. 

“Ah, you’re still m-my niece,” the man stammered, trying not to look at the slit-pupiled eyes that seemed to be trying to bore into his soul. 

“I am _not_ your niece.”

The man gulped again. Camille’s voice was just as steely and harsh as Chat Noir’s eyes. “Th-there was an akuma, I was worried about you…”

“The akuma was _me_ , and if you were really so worried about me, you never would have put yourself in my bed,” she snarled, rising to her feet. She sat back down and glanced at Chat for support.

“It’s your call,” he said softly.

“An entire lifetime of misery sounds like a _little_ overkill,” Camille muttered.

Chat Noir shrugged. “I’ve never actually done this version of Cataclysm before, so I doubt that it’ll hold for the rest of his life.”

The middle-aged man looked between the two of them, eyes wide. “W-what are you talking about?”

“Whether or not I should let Chat Noir use his power to make so nothing good ever happens to you again.”

Still staring the rapist down, the superhero drew a shadow up around his hand for the effect. “It’s her call. If I were you, I would be begging for mercy right about now.”

Valentin trembled. That voice was ice, and so was Camille’s gaze. “P-please, Camille. I’m a _florist_ , you know I won’t last a whole month in here-”

“Oh, because a month in prison makes up for nine _years_ of rape and threats,” Camille said sarcastically. “I want you to _rot_. Chat Noir.”

Chat nodded and felt for the flow of fortune, for the bad luck that concentrated around him, and focused on it. He felt the rage and terror and hurt that radiated off the girl next to him, he felt his own bitterness towards his own father. He drew out those feelings and twisted them up with the bad luck, and forced it to flow down his right arm. As black shadows twisted and convulsed around his fingers, he infused them with the sorrow that came with being trapped. He twisted and pulled at the shadow like taffy until it felt less like acid and more like thick paint. This wouldn’t be corrosive - the thought of what that might do to flesh was a horrifying thought - it was to be _immersive_. When he was satisfied with his spell, he stood and pressed his right hand to the man’s heart, holding him by the shirt so he couldn’t flee. 

“Cataclysm.”

Chat Noir released the man and took a step back. He felt a dark sense of satisfaction as the man’s face paled.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“If you were really sorry, you never would have laid a hand on me.”

Together, the young woman and the young hero left the building in silence. “Thank you,” Camille said as they exited into the fading evening sunlight.

“It was my pleasure. Do you feel better?”

Camille sighed. “I don’t know. But I feel different. I feel like my entire world just changed and I don’t know how to deal with it.”

Chat smiled faintly. “I understand the feeling. I hope to see great things from you one day, madame.” He gave her a nod and leapt off into the distance. He knew Ladybug was waiting for him at Notre Dame. 

Ladybug was anxiously pacing across the roof, and looked up when she heard Chat Noir’s boots. “So?”

“I did what I said I would do.” He went up to her and took a knee, took her hand, and kissed the back of it. “Don’t worry, My Lady, I will always be your partner and your knight. Abusive guardians are a special case,” he explained. 

Ladybug shivered. After what Tikki had explained to her, Chat Noir kneeling to her felt even more viscerally wrong than it always had. “Chat, I don’t like you kneeling to me like that.”

Chat nodded and stood. “I will follow your lead in every other matter but that one. I promise.”

Ladybug frowned. There was some other anxiety in his voice, and she could feel that he wanted her to reassure him, but she wasn’t sure what it was. “So, what exactly did you do?”

Chat sighed through his nose, looking out over the city. “I did what I said I would do,” he repeated. “I changed the flow of luck around him.” He glanced at her, and went back to staring resolutely at distant buildings. “Did you know that the ladybug and black cat Miraculous have always worked together?”

“Yes, actually. I had a long talk with Tikki, my kwami, today.”

Chat Noir nodded. “So you’re aware that we need each other to balance out our powers. And that if my power goes unchecked, the entire world could corrode and rot away at my feet.”

Ladybug frowned and put a hand on his shoulder. “Chat, are you… are you afraid of your powers?” She watched him look at her and then at his feet, take her hand and clutch it like it was his salvation.

“My Lady, I need you to promise me something.”

“What?”

He looked up at her, and she was stunned by the cold wave of fear and sadness. “I need you to promise that if I ever go too far, you’ll stop me.”

“I don’t understand,” Ladybug said slowly, fighting the way her throat closed as she was washed away in the soul-deep terror in her partner’s gaze. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, I need you to help me control these powers. I did what I did today because, well because I wanted to, of course, but also to, to prove to myself that I can use this for good. But if I start losing my humanity to it, if I start going too far, I need you to _promise_ me that you’ll stop me. The ability to control luck, to change my own odds…” he gave a strange, barking laugh. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted and I’m _terrified_.” He cupped Ladybug’s face in his hands, eyes wide like he would die if he didn’t memorize her face. “I don’t want to go down in history as one of the black cats that went insane and was corrupted by his own power. But I need your help, My Lady. One day I may need you to hold me back from doing something awful. Promise me that you’ll hold me back when I need it.”

Chat Noir was crying. Ladybug realized that he wasn’t just afraid of the powers, but of himself. The thought killed her, and she pulled him into her arms. “I promise, my friend. We will always be a team.” She squeezed him tight and scratched the back of his head to soothe him. “I trust you with my life, Chat.”

“And I trust you with mine.”

Ladybug shivered as an image flashed through her mind of another ladybug and another black cat from another era. She felt nauseous with the understanding that he didn’t just trust her to save his life. _We won’t be like them_ , she promised herself. _We’ll get a happy ending_. 

This bout was faster and smaller than the other time Chat Noir had cried into his partner’s shoulder. He raised his head and smiled at his partner. “I’m shocked that my ring isn’t beeping at us, I’m sure Plagg’s stretching as far as he can. Besides, it’s after midnight, and nothing suitable for us respectable superheroes happens after midnight,” he said, winking. 

_I’m okay with that. NO I’M NOT BRAIN STOP_. “Yeah, I should be getting home too. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, My Lady.” Chat Noir kissed her hand and then vaulted off into the night, with only the tinkling of the bell at his collar giving any indication he had ever been there.

Ladybug sighed. She recalled Alya telling her that she should worry about him and wondered how much of it was guesswork and how much she actually perceived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woof. This one and chap 7 did not want to be rewritten.
> 
> I extended the Medusa encounter from 3 pages to 5 pages.


	9. Chat Noir's Eyes Reflecting in the Parisian Moonlight

After spending more time than she wanted to admit checking out the pictures of Chat Noir from the previous night, Marinette decided Ladybug needed to thoroughly tell him off. But first, she went downstairs and prepared a box of bakery goodies for the terrible tomcat to give to Adrien. And he was still a terrible tomcat, no matter how pretty he looked twisted around a pole!

As she hopped out of the skylight, Ladybug considered that she had no idea where Chat Noir would be at this time of day. Still, she assumed that he would be up by now, since it was almost noon. So she wandered about the city, until she heard the sound of music. She followed it to the river where it entered Paris in the east, and a large crowd was gathered dancing to live folk music. She jumped when she heard a familiar voice calling her name and looked to see Chat Noir waving at her.

“Ladybug, come down here, you’re just in time and we need one more dancer!”

“What do you mean?” Ladybug shouted back.

“Just come down here and I’ll explain!”

Ladybug groaned and swung down to the square, feeling that she was going to regret it. “What’s this about needing one more dancer?”

Chat smiled at her like the mere sight of her was a breath of fresh air. “We’re trying to get a group together for a particular dance and we need thirty people, but we only have twenty-nine counting me.”

Ladybug looked over at the crowd of dancers in folk costume, who were pretending not to stare at them. It dawned on her what her partner was asking for and she shook her head. “No. No, absolutely not, Chat.” She bit her lip at his expression. “Chat, please don’t give me the kitten eyes, I absolutely can’t dance.”

“My Lady, are you telling me that you, the woman who swings around Paris like a polka-dotted Spiderman, can’t dance?”

Ladybug blushed at the way Chat was looking at her; like she was the most beautiful thing in the world and he wanted to savor the sight. It wasn’t any different from the sappy expression he always had when he looked at her, but now she was flustered by it. _Dammit Ladybug, your brain is in your head, not your crotch. He just has a crush._ “That’s right. I can’t dance, and I won’t dance.”

Chat’s ears tipped back just a little as he looked at her. Either he had gotten taller in the year that they had been partners or she had gotten shorter, and the blush on her face was simply the cutest thing he had ever seen. “Come on, they need just one more, it's our civic duty! Please, My Lady, give it a try? You can just watch what everybody else is doing, it’ll be easy, I promise. Please?” he whined, getting down on one knee and clasping one of her hands in both of his. 

Ladybug glanced down at the silly cat and was vanquished by his sad kitten eyes. “Fine. I won’t like it, but fine.”

Chat jumped to his feet. “Oh, thank you! You won’t regret it, I promise!”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes as her partner conversed with an older lady who seemed to be in charge of arranging the dancers, but went along with it as she was positioned between two girls her age.

“Not much of a dancer, Ladybug?” asked the curly-haired blonde on her right.

“Not really, no.”

“It’s fine,” said the brunette on her left, who wore her hair in a plait with flowers in it. “Honestly, if you just kinda bounce up and down with the beat and move in the same direction as everybody else, nobody will ever notice.”

Ladybug giggled. “I bet you five euros that that’s what’s going to happen.”

“I’ll hold you to that!”

As Chat Noir was positioned in the inner of the two circles of people - men on the inside, facing outwards, women on the outside, facing inwards, the bearded gentleman on Chat’s right noticed how he kept stealing glances over his shoulder at Ladybug. “You’re really fond of that girl, aren’t you Chat Noir?”

Chat laughed, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, little bit.”

The man nodded approvingly, blue eyes twinkling. “You should ask her out. You look at her the exact same way my brother looks at his wife, and they’ve been married for twice as long as you’ve been alive."

Chat blushed. “I’m sure, sir, but I think if you told her that she’d get embarrassed and punch me. She likes keeping things professional, you know?”

The older man snorted. “Then find out who she is under the mask and ask her out as a real boy.”

Chat shook his head. “No, she doesn’t want us to know each other’s civilian identities and I respect that.”

“Chat Noir, you need to quit taking no for an answer,” said the youngish blond man on his right.

“Hey Ladybug, do you see the way Chat Noir keeps looking at you?” the blonde asked, gently poking the hero’s arm.

“Huh?”

“Over there, next to my brother,” she said, pointing through the circle. “See?”

Ladybug spotted her partner, and looked away when she saw him glance at her over his shoulder. “Uh…”

The brunette shook her head. “That boy has got it _bad_ for you girl. Look, you can practically see the little hearts and cupids floating around his head!”

Ladybug groaned inwardly when she realized that she was surrounded on both sides by Ladynoir shippers. “It’s never going to happen,” she said firmly.

The redheaded man directly in front of Ladybug grinned. “Is Chat Noir directly behind me?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah? What does that have to do with anything?”

The redhead smirked. “The way this dance is choreographed, at the very end you two will end up dancing together. I saw him talking to Madame Fontaine asking for you two to be placed that way.”

The girls on either side of Ladybug giggled, and she was grateful that the music was starting. 

It started slow, with a steady beat, and Ladybug tried to follow the movements of the girls around her as the two circles switched places. She managed to not trip over her own feet during the turn in the middle as they switched back and she found herself dancing with the redhead who had explained the placements to her. 

Chat Noir grinned when the music sped up, happily swinging his first partner, a girl a couple years younger who was obviously a fan, around the square, and switched partners smoothly. Out the corner of his eye, he noticed his partner biting her lip as she struggled not to trip over herself and frowned. Maybe this hadn’t been such a great idea after all. 

_This was definitely not a good idea_ , Ladybug thought as she switched dance partners. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Chat Noir having the time of his life and grimaced. She then started panicking as the music accelerated and she found herself running through a complicated spiral of people. This was too fast, she had no idea what was going on, the music was getting louder and then-

Chat caught his partner in the center of the square in a formal dance position right in time with the final triumphant chord and crash of the cymbals. “I see you made it safely,” he murmured softly, studying the way the light played in her blue eyes… _She’s glaring at me. Shit. Shit! What did I do?_ “My Lady?”

Ladybug glared at her partner. “Chat, when a girl says she doesn’t dance, you should maybe let her not dance.” With that, she walked away.

The blond siblings had finished together just feet away from the superheroes. “That’s rough, buddy,” the brother said, clapping a hand on Chat Noir’s shoulder.

Chat’s ears, tail, and posture drooped. “Yeah,” he mumbled, walking off. Suddenly, he wasn’t in a dancing mood. 

“Hey.”

Chat perked up at the sound of his partner’s voice, but drooped a little when he saw she was still glaring at him. “Hm?”

“These are for Adrien,” Ladybug said, holding out the box. “From Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

Chat blinked. _Marinette gave me bakery stuff?_ “Uh, okay. I’ll give it to him.” Before any of his fans could come pull him into another group dance, he vaulted off towards one of the cathedrals other than Notre Dame which had bells.

Chat Noir liked the sound of church bells. Though he personally had never been very religious, something about them calmed him down when he was starting to get upset. This was why he crept into a long-unused, dusty attic of a smaller cathedral, right underneath its three bells, to open the box of baked goods from Marinette.

After de-transforming, Adrien smiled and opened up the card from his friend that was taped to the box. 

_Dear Adrien, I know you liked the bakery food that one time you came to my house, so I fixed you a variety box. I hope you like all of it, and that Chat Noir doesn’t eat any of it before giving it to you. I knew you had issues with your dad, but I never knew he was bad enough that you would need to run away under the protection of a superhero :( I hope you’re okay, and we all miss you. I miss you a lot, and I can’t wait to see you again - Marinette_

Adrien smiled. She dotted the ‘i’ in her name with a little heart. He sighed. “I can’t wait either,” he said to himself, opening the box. “Hey Plagg, do you want this cheese danish?”

The tiny floating black cat had seized the pastry before his charge could even finish asking the question. 

For himself, Adrien picked out a blackberry tart, and he sat back to listen to the three bells toll their chord. He considered the note from Marinette. He had always thought she was pretty cute, but he had never known what to make of her behavior around him. The way she always stuttered around him was frustrating, not to mention it was probably incredibly embarrassing for her. And it was so different from how she had told him off for the gum incident - what had happened? 

Honestly, the way Marinette had given him a piece of her mind with confidence reminded him of Ladybug scolding Chat Noir. Adrien considered this. Both wore their black hair in pigtails and had blue eyes, and while he had never seen Marinette in clothes tight enough to really compare their physiques, the two were the same height and had similar thin, long-legged builds… No, but they acted so _different_ …

Well, Adrien Agreste and Chat Noir didn’t act a _bit_ alike…

“Hey Plagg?”

“Hm?”

“Do kwami know who other kwami are working with?”

Plagg glanced at his charge. “Adrien, if I knew the identity of every other Miraculous holder, we would have confiscated Hawkmoth’s Miraculous ages ago.”

“Well, since we and the ladybug are always partners, do you know who she is?”

“I have a good guess. What are you getting at, kid?” 

“I think I… no, it’s stupid,” Adrien said. “There’s probably a thousand girls in Paris with black hair and blue eyes, it would be a miracle if I knew her as a civilian.”

Plagg looked at how his charge frowned, drawing pictures in the dust on the floor. “Adrien, you need to stop taking no for an answer from yourself. When you were declared missing, didn’t Ladybug say that she knows you in real life and she’s worried about you?” He shook his head at how the blond’s head snapped up and a smile of glee graced his face. _Wow this kid has it bad_.

“Plagg, I could kiss you!”

“Please don’t.”

“ _Claws out._ ”

Chat Noir leapt out of the church, box in hand. After safely depositing his sweets in his warehouse loft, he set off for the Dupain-Cheng home. He landed on the balcony and for a minute, simply watched Marinette. She was absorbed in her sketchbook and hadn’t noticed him. “Hello, Princess.”

Marinette jumped when she saw the black cat perched on the railing of her balcony. “Oh, it’s just a stray,” she said, sticking her tongue out at him. 

Chat Noir grinned. “Hey, strays have the most fun. I suppose collars have their virtues, but you don’t need to know about that. I came to thank you for the sweets for Adrien.”

Marinette blinked. “Oh, uh, okay. So he liked them?”

“He hasn’t eaten it all yet, but he tells me the blackberry tart was delicious.”

“Oh.” She smiled, and Chat swooned a little. “You _are_ allowed to come on the actual balcony, you know.”

Chat stepped onto the balcony and plopped down in the chair next to Marinette’s. “What are you drawing, Princess?” he asked, looking over her shoulder. He raised an eyebrow when he recognized some of the dance costumes from the festival earlier that day. 

“I passed by this folk dance festival thing earlier today. I thought the costumes were neat.”

Chat smiled. “They are. The fun thing about these skirts,” he said, pointing to one of the drawings, “is how much they move. In some of the dances with a lot of spinning and leaping, the girls look like butterflies, it’s incredible to watch.”

“You’re interested in folk dance? I thought clubs were your thing,” Marinette teased, and regretted it a little when she saw his ears tilt backwards. 

“I like dancing in general. I’ve only ever actually learned formal ballroom dancing, but YouTube is a blessing.”

“And you’re a musician and a singer. Do you act as well?”

Chat grinned. “Well I’m in costume right now, am I not?”

“True.” Marinette paused, looking at the suit itself. “Uh, this might sound a little weird, but is it okay if I feel the material?” She had never felt the material of her own suit and it drove her mad, but she assumed that they were the same.

Chat raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, sure.” He held out his hand and watched the girl carefully finger the cuff of his glove. She probably knew way more about the nature of the material than he did, but he enjoyed watching her crinkle her brows examining it. 

“Wow, it really is skin-tight,” she said, gently pulling at the material on the back of his hand. She turned her attention to his fingertips. She had never really looked at the claws, and saw that they were like extensions of his fingernails, that tapered to a point that turned slightly downward. They were significantly thicker than human nails, and were shaped in such a way that they seemed to have three sharp edges. She ran her thumb along the point and squealed when she cut herself. “Oh my _God_ that’s sharp!” she exclaimed, sucking on the wound. 

“Sorry! I should have warned you,” Chat said, pulling his hand back. “Are you okay?”

Marinette glanced up and frowned a little to herself when she saw how the superhero was looking at her. Wide-eyed, ears back, with his tail twitching anxiously. “I’m fine, Chat Noir,” she said gently. 

Chat nodded, swallowing nervously. “Sorry about that, Princess. If it makes you feel better, I’ve managed to nick myself on those before.”

“It’s fine, it’s just a little cut.” She considered him. “So, does every girl in your life get a noble title?”

Chat smiled. “No, that’s just for you and Ladybug.”

Marinette’s eyebrows shot up. “I’m in the same tier as Ladybug for noble titles?”

Chat grinned. “I suppose you are, Princess.” His ears swiveled and pupils narrowed suddenly, and he looked up.

“Is something wrong?”

The cat was silent for a long moment, simply watching the air, ears roving. Marinette could swear he was sniffing for something. “Get inside,” he breathed. “There’s something wrong.”

“What? Is it an akuma?”

“No. Akumas smell like bad incense.” He sniffed the air, closing his eyes, and shuddered. “Princess, get inside, now, and stay there.” Before she could argue, he pushed her into her room and closed the door behind her. 

Chat Noir tried to quell his panic as he approached the tourist entrance to the catacombs. This was bad, it was very, very bad. His stomach flipped when he recognized the scent of fresh human blood. The cat perched on the roof of a building near the catacombs and surveyed the scene.

A walking shadow had emerged from the labyrinth of bones, and now it walked in daylight. The smell of blood came from somewhere underground, and Chat tried not to think about the bloodbath that must have happened to release this creature. It reached for a man cowering with his child in a cafe, and Chat watched in horror as it pierced their throats and drew out all of their blood. It drew a symbol in the air with the blood and flicked it at a building, which immediately crumbled with people inside of it. 

“That’s enough!” the cat roared, leaping down to the street and brandishing his staff. The shadow seemed to turn, and his head ached as he heard its voice in his mind.

_Hello, little prey. Your blood will make excellent paint for my palace._

“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Chat Noir said out loud. He realized that this might not have been the best idea; it was pointless to use shadows to attack a shadow. “What are you?”

_I am the darkness in the heart of mankind. I am everything you fear and more, prey._

Chat narrowed his eyes. Inwardly, he searched for any wisdom from Plagg, and was struck by a vision of a past ladybug, Joan of Arc, and her black cat, a fellow soldier in the Hundred Year’s War. He stood watching the plate-armored heroes deep in the catacombs. He could barely see; the room was lit only by torches, and his nose was assaulted by the scent of blood, fresh and hot. 

Joan herself was on the ground, barely conscious, and her cat stood facing the creature, avoiding putting weight on his left leg. He was unbothered, green eyes blazing through the gap in his helmet. Chat watched his predecessor draw his baton and pierce the creature and start drawing the shadow towards him. The knight was chanting what he vaguely recognized as a psalm - _but of course Joan of Arc’s partner was equally religious_ \- and making the sign of the cross with his free hand. 

Chat understood that his predecessor was acting out of desperation. This beast could only be bound permanently by sound and light. They were far from any source of music and his ladybug was out cold. His only hope was to bind it by the sheer force of his will. He shuddered as his predecessor’s body was eaten away by the shadow and it was bound in his bones, only to be awakened with blood sacrifice centuries later. After what seemed like hours, he watched Joan rise, take the ring off his skeletal hand, put it on her own, and leave.

Chat’s eyes refocused on the shadow as he rejoined the present. He looked around and noticed a familiar red and black figure whizzing towards him. He grinned at the bloody shadow. “You can only have my blood if you can catch me,” he said, and started sprinting. 

“MY LADY!” he shouted, “NOTRE DAME! TRUST ME!”

Ladybug grabbed her partner and pulled him with her just in time to avoid the Shadow piercing his back. “What in God’s name is that?”

“I don’t want to know! But I know how to bind it forever!”

“How?”

“You’re going to bind it! Have you ever had visions of past ladybugs?”

“Only once!”

“Well start looking for Joan of Arc, it was her black cat that bound it the first time.”

“Oh, and that worked so well!”

“They were desperate and she was knocked out. It needs to be bound by light, if I try to use my shadows it’ll only get bigger and stronger.”

Ladybug paled as she swung towards the Cathedral. But sure enough, a vision came. Not of Joan of Arc, but a ladybug and black cat from what looked like Siberia or Alaska, guessing by the thick furs they wore. The cat wielded a great bell of solidified shadow, while lights shimmered around the ladybug’s hands. In front of them was a shadowy monster similar to the one they faced.

The cat rang the bell in great swinging motions, each toll knocking the creature back. The ladybug raised her hands and lights flew to its head and feet, and connected to create a cage. She swung her weapon around her head and cast it through the cage of lights, and again the other way. Ladybug couldn’t follow her predecessor’s movements in the vision but she could feel that she would remember them when she needed them. 

The cage shrank inwards into a column of light, impaling the Shadow. It screamed a sound that could only be described as unholy, and exploded outwards as shards of a strange, glittery black stone. 

Ladybug emerged from the vision just as she landed in one of the bell sanctuaries at Notre Dame.

“You got this?” Chat Noir asked, creating a rope of shadow to pull and ring one of the great bells.

Ladybug swallowed. “I hope so! Do you got this?”

Chat gestured up to the bell he had selected. “Anne-Genevieve, named for the patron saint of Paris who raised the people to resist the Huns. There’s not a better bell for the job in all of France.”

Ladybug steeled herself as the terrible nightmare creature alighted in the bell sanctuary. It reached out and both of them flinched as Chat Noir rang the bell. Her partner’s assessment had been correct; the Shadow already seemed to be trembling at its sound. 

She closed her eyes as she felt her Arctic predecessor guiding her. She felt light-weight, like she had when she was first learning to swing through the towers of her city. Her heart fluttered and she felt warmth pool in her hands as images filled her mind - birds in flight, blooming plants, Adrien’s smile, the full moon lighting the streets…

She raised her hands and strands of pink light played around her fingertips. She let happy images keep coming as she cast the cage of light around the creature - squirrels playing in the park, the feeling of winning Gabriel Agreste’s hat design contest, Chat Noir’s eyes reflecting the Parisian moonlight… 

Ladybug was too swept up in the spell she was casting to question the mental images she was getting, and focused on connecting the plates of solid light below and above the monster. She drew her yo-yo and cast it about the sanctuary in rhythm with the toll of the bell. In seconds, she found herself dancing around the bell chamber, sealing the cage and pushing it in on itself with bands of light that whipped off her weapon. 

The column of light condensed and the creature screamed, but was silenced by the harsh sound of the bell. As it had in the vision, it exploded in a rain of black stone. 

Ladybug flinched, raising her arms in front of her face, but was protected by a wall of pale pink light. She started to hyperventilate as she realized that _she_ had made it. _She_ had bent light to her will. _She_ had destroyed a _demon_. “Oh my God.”

Chat Noir released the shadows making his bell rope and gathered the shards. Holding them in his hands, he barked his Cataclysm and then went to his knees next to Ladybug. He pulled her into his arms and held her as she panicked. “It’s okay, My Lady. We did it, you bound it and I unmade it.” He gently rocked her. “I know the powers are intense, it’s okay, you’ll be okay.”

Ladybug trembled as all of her walls crashed down. She had never seen anything so terrible, and her newfound powers… “I don’t want that kind of power,” she whimpered, sobbing into her partner’s chest. 

“I know, My Lady,” Chat murmured. “I don’t really want mine, either. But imagine what would have happened if we didn’t. I know it’s heavy, but it’ll be okay, I promise.” He petted her hair as she wept and held her close. “We’ll be alright, My Lady.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay longest chapter so far!!!  
> Merci beaucoup notreallysanefairy for the goody box idea  
> Poor chat he just wants to dance with his girlfriend


	10. Bénévole - Paris Service d’Incendie

As much as he would have loved to comfort his partner for as long as she needed it, Chat Noir knew that time was ticking. “My Lady, I understand that you're having an existential crisis, but a building was crushed with people inside. We need to rescue as many as we can, or, barring that, recover as many bodies as we can.”

Ladybug sighed a quavering sigh. “I... yes. You're right.” She extracted herself from his embrace and stood up. “Let's go.”

Together, the superheroes returned to the catacombs. The second he touched pavement, Chat Noir was manipulating shadows to move rubble, knowing that the streets in this part of the city were too narrow for heavy equipment and ambulances. 

Ladybug was still dazed, and for a minute she simply watched her partner. His ears roved and his nose twitched, and she knew he was hunting for signs of life in the rubble. His fingers moved like a marionettist's as he directed solid shadows to move blocks. His hands were actually quite graceful, with long fingers before the claws, and her gaze slowly crept up his arms. Every muscle was well-defined from a year of superhero workouts, and with a start, she realized that every muscle was straining, and sweat ran down his neck.

“Chat! You look like you're trying to lift an airplane, what's wrong?”

“A-actually, My Lady, I think this block is h-heavier than that,” he grunted. Chat widened his stance and spread his arms, summoning more shadows. He gasped in pain when a drop of sweat ran into his eye but kept straining anyway, now with one eye closed. 

Panic crashed into Ladybug like a tidal wave; she needed to help but had no idea how. She felt her stomach flipping, but the panic was dispelled when she heard noises from under the massive piece of rubble. _There are people under there!_ Her face hardened as she understood what she needed to do. She loosely moved her arms, taking in how the sunshine felt warm even through her suit, and started to bend the light. “Don't drop it, Chat, I've got you.” She felt the light solidify like it had before and slid it under the rock.

“I wasn't planning on it!” Chat growled. “We lift on three. One,”

“Two,” Ladybug whispered.

“THREE!” they exclaimed as one, pushing the huge block of concrete and steel up and over into the growing pile of rubble. The second he didn't need to support the weight anymore, Chat collapsed to his knees, panting.

“God I think I'm dying,” he wheezed, falling to his side. “That was hard.” He looked up and smiled at his partner. “You were great, My Lady.” He glanced down at the beeping from his ring and scowled, seeing he was about to de-transform. “That was the last of the really big stuff, I think. They still need you to lift out people and smaller pieces, though. I'll be back, but first I need you to help me to that Starbucks,” he said, pointing to a corner building. 

“What for?” Ladybug asked.

“De-transform, feed kwami, eat, in that order.” He leaned heavily on his partner. “Don't worry, I'm not injured, just tired. I'll be back as soon as I can.”

“Wait, what? You can't leave, I can't do this alone!”

Chat Noir fixed his eyes on hers and stared her down. “Yes, you can. You did just fine and that was the last of the big pieces, and I'll be back soon.” He hugged her and pulled her onwards. “Come on, I think Plagg's right about on his last limb.”

“I... okay, you're right.” She knew he was right, that she could handle it, she just didn't feel like it. After depositing the blond in the Starbucks, where he immediately went to the bathroom to de-transform, Ladybug returned to the crushed building and started working with firefighters to pull people from the rubble. Chat returned after an hour and apparently several coffees, with heavy bags under his eyes but ready to work his shadow magic. By the time everybody and every body had been removed, the sun was setting. 

The teenaged heroes nearly jumped out of their skins when a firefighter tapped their shoulders. “Here,” he said, putting coats around their shoulders – they read _Bénévole – Paris Service d'Incendie_ on the backs – while a paramedic handed them cups of watery hot chocolate. “You two had a hard day. Keep the jackets, go home, and get some rest, okay?”

They nodded, too tired to speak. Together, they sat down on the sidewalk and sipped their hot chocolate. 

“Chat Noir?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you for letting me cry on you in the cathedral,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. 

Chat Noir smiled softly. “It was my pleasure. Are you alright?”

Ladybug sighed. _God_ she was tired. “I'm too tired to even, even, think...”

Chat Noir froze when he realized his partner had fallen asleep on him. And then he broke out in a smile. “Come on, My Lady, let's get you home.” He picked her up and was surprised how heavy she was – but then muscle did weigh more than fat. He started to carry her to (what he assumed to be) her home, but then stopped halfway there when he realized that she would be upset if he knew where she lived. Or extremely embarrassed if he was wrong. So instead he took her to the warehouse.

When Ladybug de-transformed in her sleep, he itched to peek at her face, just to confirm his guess. He couldn't because he knew she wanted her identity kept a secret, and felt he didn't need to when he recognized that custom-embroidered handbag. He was a good ninety-eight percent sure that his Lady and his Princess were the same person. 

As he crept into his loft, he realized he hadn't thought this plan out very well either. He looked around dumbly for a bit until he made up his mind. He laid her in his bed and tucked her in, then snuggled himself up in a sleeping bag on the floor. As an afterthought, he pulled off a pillowcase and tied it around his head to cover his eyes and most of his face – as much as he would love to wake up staring lovingly into his Lady's eyes, that wasn't how he wanted their (hopefully) inevitable reveal to go down. 

Marinette squeaked and grumbled sleepily as she was woken up by the dawn, and the sound of high-pitched voices. She opened one eye and saw Tikki talking in hushed tones with a little floating black cat. _That must be Chat Noir's kwami._ She hummed absently. _He's a little bit cute. I wonder what sort of food he likes?_ She watched the kwami like she might watch a rather dull documentary while a strange unease bubbled up from her subconscious. It took several minutes, but eventually her brain got the point across and she bolted upright. “Oh my God what happened?” she shrieked, looking around wildly. She realized that she must be in Chat Noir's warehouse loft. With horror on her face, she looked over her shoulder and saw him on an uncomfortable-looking futon several feet away. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that he had covered his eyes, and most of his face, with what looked like a pillowcase. 

“Good morning, My Lady,” Adrien said softly. He paused and rolled his tongue around in his mouth like he was swishing mouthwash. How strange, for Chat Noir's words to come out of his mouth. “I'm sorry if you didn't want to wake up in my bed, but I didn't know what home was yours to take you to.”

“Oh. Of course.” Marinette turned to face Chat Noir's civilian from. “You slept on the floor.”

Adrien shrugged. “It's more comfortable than it looks. More importantly, I didn't think you'd be comfortable with me sleeping with you.” He sat upright and rolled his shoulders, and faced her. 

Marinette frowned. “Kitty, you really are too chivalrous for your own good.”

Adrien grinned a Chat Noir grin. It felt weird to be Adrien but to be acting like Chat Noir. Which one was he in this moment? Schrodinger's Chat Noir... “Would you prefer if I had slept with you?” Yeah no, that was definitely something Adrien could never say without some kind of mask. Clearly Chat Noir was the one awake right now.

“I never said that, terrible tomcat.” She sighed when she saw him drop the grin. She could practically see his ears droop. “I suppose it was sweet of you, though. Um...” She bit her lip. After everything she saw the previous day she wanted a hug. Frankly, she wanted to bury herself in another person and hide from the world forever, but nobody she knew would understand, not completely. Except... “Um, can you... come over here?”

Immediately, Chat Noir was at his Lady's side. “What's up?” He blinked behind the blindfold when she hugged him, burying her face in his chest. He smiled and pulled her close. “How 'bout we both transform so I can take off this blindfold, hm?”

Marinette nodded and gave Tikki the command to transform. Chat followed suit and pulled the pillowcase off and threw it into a corner. He looked into his partner's eyes and smiled. “You're beautiful even when exhausted, My Lady.”

Ladybug chuckled and leaned against him. “Shh, I just want to cuddle.”

“ _Yes_ , My Lady,” the cat said emphatically, and a purr like a chainsaw rolled up out of his deep chest. He lightly headbutted her shoulder and cheek, wrapping his arms around her. 

Ladybug laughed out loud. “You know you're not an actual cat, right?” she joked, though she certainly wasn't arguing with his strangely warm embrace. 

“Mm, it's my greatest shame, I'm secretly an absolute lap cat.”

“Oh, yes, it's terrible,” Ladybug teased. She closed her eyes and exhaled with a huff. “Do you run hotter as Chat Noir? You're weirdly warm.”

“I don't know maybe. Is it a problem?”

Ladybug shook her head and leaned against him. She felt safe. Tucked away in his arms and chest she didn't have to deal with the reality of what had happened. “I'm glad I have you,” she mumbled. 

Chat Noir raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet. He had a feeling she was going somewhere with this and he wasn't about to interrupt.

“I never would have been able to handle one akuma without you. And that thing yesterday, I had no idea what I was doing and I probably would have gotten killed if it weren't for you. I'm glad you have my back.” She paused, looking for words that described how she felt. “I... I don't know how I feel about all the lightbending and demon killing and... whatever else I can do. But I... I'm glad I have you to... to let me be unsure? Yeah. Thank you for letting me be unsure of myself. It... helps a lot,” she finished, voice faint. She blinked when she felt something wet drop on her head and looked up. “Chat, are you crying?”

Chat Noir wiped his eyes and blinked several times. “No.”

Ladybug giggled. “Gee kitty, I didn't know you were so e-”

“I'm glad I have you too,” Chat Noir said quickly, squeezing her close. He hadn't expected to be so bowled over by her statement. He knew she trusted him and relied on him in battle, but the knowledge that she relied on him emotionally resettled with new weight in his chest. It was a pleasant weight, though. 

Ladybug smiled. “Good.” She rested there for a moment. “Hey, Chat?”

“Hm?”

“How did you learn about all this stuff if your kwami didn't tell you?”

Chat frowned and was silent for several seconds. “Well, I kind of figured it out for myself,” he said, and told her the story of his research at La Sorbonne, and what he had learned. He explained how he justified to himself why somebody with his destructive potential should be allowed to live, his moments of catharsis, and how he had started learning to bend shadows.

Ladybug pulled herself from his embrace and stared at him. “Chat, you don't need to justify your will to live.”

Chat Noir smiled. “I don't need to but I still have to. I know, that doesn't make any sense. If I don't I'll lose my mind and there are... let's just say I've been some places I don't want to go back to.”

“That's what you meant when you said 'personal experience' after saving that guy.”

“I don't like talking about it.” Chat rolled his neck as he considered how to phrase things. “I don't want to think about it and end up there again. In a fucked up roundabout way, Hawkmoth kind of saved my life. He's the reason we were given the Miraculous, and without this ring...” He chewed his lip. “I would have actually landed.”

Ladybug swallowed. “I love you.” Both sets of eyes widened and her hands flew to her mouth and she blushed furiously. “I... as a partner. I don't know what I'd do without you, I mean. You're my best friend.”

Chat laughed. “I love you too, My Lady, as a partner.” He studied her flushed face. “I'm really your best friend?”

“Yeah, actually. I mean, my civilian self has a best friend, but she doesn't know who I am. Well, you don't know who I am either but, you understand the superhero stuff and... and the pressure,” she said finally. “You understand why I never sleep and why I'm terrified of traveling.”

“You're my best friend too.”

Ladybug smiled. “I'm glad. Alas, I should go home. My parents are probably worried sick.”

“Of course.” He couldn't help winking at her. “I hope to see you in my bed again.”

Ladybug laughed and shook her head. “You really are a terrible tomcat,” she said as she left through a window. On a whim, she poked her head back through. “If you do want me in your bed again, I require a bouquet of lavender and roses, the best blueberry muffins in Paris, and vanilla candles,” she said, winked, and leaped away.

Chat's mouth fell open and his eyes bulged. After dropping the transformation, he took a few seconds to let his brain reboot. “She likes lavender and roses,” he breathed, blushing like a bashful schoolgirl.

Plagg rolled his eyes. “Do you need some alone time? Please _don't answer that_. You interrupted a very important conversation.”

“What about?”

Ladybug stopped in an alley near her home to de-transform, opting to go through the front door instead of trying to explain how she had gotten in without being seen. She just wanted to get through the inevitable lecture and worrying from her parents. As she passed her reflection in a window, she squeaked, realizing she was still wearing the fire department jacket from the previous night, and shoved it in her bag. “Hey, mom, hey, dad,” she said, yawning genuinely, as she walked in the front door.

“Marinette! Where on Earth have you been?” Sabine Dupain-Cheng asked, all but leaping over the counter to hug her daughter. 

Marinette cringed when she saw her mother's eyes were puffy. They had probably been worrying that she was in that collapsed building or worse. “I'm fine mom, I promise. When I saw that thing on the news I went and hid in a library. I fell asleep in one of the study rooms, I'm fine.”

“Okay. Go inside, your father left some pancakes in the microwave for you.” Sabine squeezed before letting the girl go. “Next time you take shelter in a library from whatever's attacking Paris, please call us?”

Marinette nodded and swallowed guilty bile. “I will.”

Once in her room, Tikki was immediately floating in front of her. “We need to talk,” the little red and black spotted creature said seriously. 

“Okay?” Marinette said, hanging the fire department jacket in her closet and sitting at her desk. “What do we need to talk about?”

Tikki took a breath. “Plagg and I haven't taught our charges to bend light and shadow, or use any of your further powers, in four hundred years. I'm not going to tell you why, it would only freak you out. All you need to know is that on a scale of abusing Miraculous powers, Hawkmoth is a fluffy bunny. You can take him without the deeper powers, but that Shade was freed by somebody. 

“It was bound in the bones of Jacques-Charles Boudricourt, Joan of Arc's partner. Self-sacrificial bindings are notoriously unstable, so I presume other mages have added to the bindings and built extra wards over the past six hundred years. Somebody was strong enough to break those wards and make a human sacrifice to release it.”

Marinette swallowed. “What does that mean for us?”

On the other side of town, Plagg darted back and forth in the air, his own way of pacing. “It means that as much as nobody wants it, you and Ladybug are going to have to fight this guy... whatever the hell he is.”

“That's comforting,” Adrien muttered.

“You're welcome. Tikki and I will make sure you two are prepared, but now our first priority needs to be _finding_ Hawkmoth, not just fighting akumas. They would do nothing but distract us from finding who or whatever released the Shade, and besides that...” Plagg frowned and looked out the window. “It's time we find Nooroo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh Ladybug, you're so oblivious :)  
> She's going to be the last to figure out that Chat is Adrien.
> 
> Sorry this chap was so short, but I promise next one is gon be good


	11. Well Then I Guess Einstein Believes in Magic

The day after fighting the Shade, Chat Noir decided it was time to take Nino up on his offer of a jam session. He knew that he and Ladybug probably needed to scope out the catacombs for signs of whoever released the Shade, but he didn’t want to think about it until Ladybug brought it up. 

_Knock knock knock-knock knock._

Nino jumped and looked up from his computer when Chat Noir knocked on the window behind him, and relaxed when he saw who it was. “Hey man, you finally taking me up on that jam sesh?”

Chat smiled and slipped in the window. “Hell yeah, how could I pass up a jam with the foremost up-and-coming DJ in the EU?”

“Can I get that compliment signed on paper?”

Chat laughed. “Anything for you, my man, you can even notarize it.”

“Hey, do you want something to eat? We’ve got sandwich stuff in the fridge.”

Chat’s growling stomach answered for him. “Food would be great, actually. There’s kind of an inverse square law going on with magic; lifting something twice as big is four times as hard and I’m pretty wiped.”

“Well then I guess Einstein believes in magic.”

“Huh?”

“Albert Einstein once said that he’d only believe in magic if it followed an inverse square law. You want turkey, chicken, or ham?”

“All. Just, give me the works.”

Nino snorted. “Dude, if I gave you the works from _this_ fridge, the sandwich would be the size of your head.”

“Give me two of the works.”

Nino looked up from the fridge. “You’re not - oh my God you’re actually serious aren’t you?”

“Yeah, actually. And can I get a glass of water?”

“Sure, glasses are right of the sink and there’s ice in the freezer.”

After eating their late lunch - Chat Noir somehow managed to eat his two massive sandwiches just as fast as Nino ate one normal-sized meal - they set up Nino’s mixing equipment next to the grand piano. “Now,” Nino said once satisfied with his set-up, “bring me into the musical mind of Chat Noir, what is the background music of your life?” he intoned, steepling his fingers. 

“You know 30 Seconds to Mars?”

“Oh, Chat Noir, I know _everything_. It cool if I record this?” Nino asked, finger hovering over the button.

Chat grinned and nodded. “Oh yeah, _The Black Cat Sessions_ is about to be the name of your first platinum album.”

“Beautiful.” 

For two hours, the musicians wandered a meandering path from 30 Seconds to Mars, through a variety of metal subgenres, passed by Fall Out Boy with a stunning (in their opinions) rendition of Immortals, used that to segway into movie soundtracks and then Disney music, and had finally landed on Broadway, where Nino was totally definitely not crying a little bit about Chat Noir’s performance of Do You Hear The People Sing?

“Dude, Adrien I-” Nino’s eyes widened and his smile dropped as he looked at the superhero, who was regarding him with surprise and something like appreciation. “Shit, dude I am so sorry, me and my friend-” It had just slipped out, he and Adrien had jammed together a thousand times before.

“Shh, you’re fine bro.” Chat grinned. “Hey Nino, guess what?”

“What?” Nino squeaked nervously.

Chat’s Cheshire grin grew wider. “You won the game, that’s what.”

“What game?” Nino asked, and his jaw dropped to the floor when Chat Noir de-transformed in front of him. 

Meanwhile, Alya had been in Marinette’s room for two hours, talking about a range of topics from _Marinette where in God’s name were you I thought you were dead how dare you not tell me where you were_ to _Shh it’s okay Adrien’s okay he’s got Chat Noir to protect him, lemme get you a tissue_ to _So you went mysteriously silent after I sent you those clips of Chat Noir, you wanna tell me what you were doin’ with those wink wink?_

“Oh, God Alya, I am not telling you what- No. I wasn’t doing anything with those clips other than groaning at you for doing this to me, get your horrible mind out of the gutter!” Marinette insisted, blushing furiously.

Alya grinned. “That is the blush of a woman in denial. Don’t worry, my dear, I know you secretly want him in your bed, we all do.”

Marinette scowled, wondering if this was her punishment for telling Chat Noir what he would have to do to make that happen, other than live in an alternate dimension. “I do not want Chat Noir in my bed,” she grumbled.

“Oh so you want to be in his~” Alya teased, going over to rummage in her friend’s closet. “Let’s see what you have that I can borrow for my date with Nino tonight.”

“Why do you need to borrow my clothes for a date with Nino?”

“Cause he’s taking me to the rave club he’s been DJ-ing at and I don’t have any clothes for that scene.”

Marinette raised an eyebrow. “And what exactly makes you think _I_ have rave clothes?”

“I don’t know, maybe you have a secret wild side and that’s why you mysteriously disappeared last night.” Alya raised an eyebrow and pulled out a coat. “Where’d the volunteer firefighter jacket come from?”

Marinette’s eyes widened as she recognized the jacket from the previous night. _Shitshitshit shitty shitshit!_ “Uh, the thrift store?”

Alya laughed. “Girl, since when do you go to the thrift store? Actually, this kinda looks like… _no_ ,” she breathed, looking at her friend with wide eyes. “This is - you have - _what?_ ” she squeaked.

Nino hyperventilated for a moment and ran his hands through his hair. “ _Adrien? You’re Chat Noir? Dudewhydidn’tyoutellmeIwassoworriedaboutyouwhat-_ ”

Adrien just laughed. “Hey, Nino, Nino, it’s cool, calm down. Yes, I’ve been Chat Noir this entire time, I’m fine, just chi-”

“ _I will not chill out!_ My best friend - _Best. Friend._ \- is a goddamned _superhero_ and you never thought to tell me?” Nino asked, holding a hand to his heart.

Adrien leaned over the piano. “Yeah, I know, but I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to get kidnapped for a super ransom or something, okay? Also I knew that you’d react like this.”

Nino blathered incoherently for a long moment and, after composing himself, fixed Adrien with a sober gaze. “Do you want to tell me why you mysteriously disappeared with no word as to why, and only Chat Noir to reassure us that you’re okay?”

Adrien’s gaze was equally serious. “No, but I will anyways. Since mom died, my father has treated me more like an employee than a son. He doesn’t give half a damn that I don’t like modelling anymore, and he basically told me that he couldn’t possibly care less that I have more psychological issues than you can shake a stick at. So, I decided he can have his son back when he admits what he’s done and will actually treat me like he’s supposed to.”

Nino nodded as this confirmed his suspicions that his friend was mentally ill. “You know, if you want to talk to a professional, I can give you my Aunt Marina’s card.”

Adrien smiled sadly. “Thanks, Nino. I dunno, maybe she could help with some of the other stuff? But I don’t think there are any therapists that would know what to do with some of the superhero stuff - there are mental images from that fight yesterday that are gonna be burned into my brain for the rest of time,” he said, shivering at the memory of seeing his predecessor’s flesh eaten away by the shadow. 

“Actually, if there’s any therapist who would know what to do with the superhero issues, it _would_ be Aunt Marina. She’s become the leading expert on treating akuma-related PTSD. She’s in the States for the rest of the week for a fancy conference, but she’ll be back by next Monday. I’ll tell her you’re coming so you can sneaky sneak in a window or some shit if you don’t want Paris to know their hero is a human being.”

“Tell her he’ll be there after hours on Monday,” Plagg said firmly, interrupting Adrien’s rebuttal.

Nino’s jaw dropped again. “What the hell are you?” he squeaked.

Adrien sighed. “Nino, this is Plagg. He’s a kwami, the little magical fairy thing that actually transforms me into Chat Noir.”

Plagg snorted. “Oh, I’m older and badder than fairies. In Ireland black cats are the only things they don’t mess with.”

Adrien gave his friend a _look at what I have to deal with_ look, and shook his head when the other boy just laughed.

“Oh my God I watched you swing around a stripper pole in a literal leather catsuit.” Nino cackled. “Your dad would have a stroke if he found out!”

Adrien smiled and laughed a little himself. “Ladybug gave me quite the scolding for it. She doesn’t approve of my new hobby at all.”

Nino gasped. “Wait! If you’re Chat Noir, then who’s Ladybug?”

“Uh, she doesn’t know I know who she is, and I’m pretty sure that if I told you she would hang me by my tail.”

“Does she know who you are?”

Adrien shook his head. “No. If she does she’s a really good actor, but I highly doubt she knows who I am. She’s pretty interested in us not knowing each other’s secret identities.”

Nino nodded in understanding. “So is Ladybug Angelica or Eliza?”

Adrien smiled at the reference. “Ladybug is George Washington.”

“What, you’d duel a man for her honor?”

Adrien considered this. “Actually, I probably would if she would let me,” he said, laughing, but dropped the smile when he saw his friend’s expression. “Something wrong with that?”

Nino sighed. “You are way too self-sacrificial for her.”

“She’s already given me that lecture. And speaking of which, we _should_ be clearing the catacombs right now. I have a bad feeling about whoever freed that Shade.”

“Freed it?” Nino asked as his friend transformed into Chat Noir. “I thought it just… broke out by itself.”

Chat shook his head. “No, it was bound well enough that it would take human sacrifice to free it.”

“How do you know?”

Chat hesitated. “Because it took human sacrifice to bind it. See you around, Nino.”

Alya gaped at her friend. “Marinette, why didn’t you tell me you were Ladybug?” she whispered. “I’m your best friend and your biggest fan.”

Marinette groaned. “I know, Alya, but it’s safer that nobody knows who Ladybug really is.”

Alya fixed her friend with a harsh glare. “Oh no, do _not_ pull that noble superhero shit with me. If you’re going to run off and superhero - which I am totally cool with, by the way - I expect you to _tell_ me, understand?”

Marinette opened and closed her mouth a few times, and then sighed, hanging her head. “Okay.”

“Does Chat know who you are?”

Marinette shook her head. “No, he doesn’t.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

Alya shrugged and sat next to her friend. “So… where’d you sleep last night? I saw Ladybug fall asleep on his shoulder and he carried you off into the sunset.”

Marinette blushed. “I kind of slept in his bed last night.” She glanced up and shook her head. “Alya, close your mouth, you’ll catch flies.”

Alya grinned a grin that would have made Chat Noir proud. “So you _did_ sleep with him. How was it? Where does he live?”

Marinette blushed harder at her friend’s implication. “Not like that - he slept on the floor.”

“That boy is too chivalrous for his own good.”

“That’s what I told him.” Marinette shrugged. “I mean, he respected the fact that I really wouldn’t be comfortable with him sleeping with me.” 

“So what’s with the magical light and shadow powers you two have?” Alya asked, sensing that Chat Noir’s self-sacrificial habits were a sore spot. “Those are new.”

Marinette cringed. “I’m… still kind of in the middle of an existential crisis over that. I think Chat has it worse though.”

“What do you mean?”

Marinette looked up at her friend. “Promise me you won’t tell anybody about anything I tell you today?”

“I promise.”

“After he helped that Medusa akuma get revenge, he told me that - well, first he told me that shitty parents and guardians are a sore spot for him, apparently he has a bad home life? But he told me that he expected that, if he ever went too far, he expected me to stop him. And I’m not completely sure what he meant by it.”

Alya nodded sagely. “There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

“The shadow thing we fought yesterday, apparently it’s called a Shade, when I killed it-”

“You killed that thing?”

“-yes. When I killed it, right before it died, I heard it’s voice in my head and it told me…” she shivered. “It told me that one day I’ll have to kill Chat Noir.”

Alya’s eyes widened as she saw tears slip down her friend’s cheeks. “No way.”

“It’s exact words were ‘ _today the black cat fights for you, tomorrow he’ll kill for you. One day you’ll kill the black cat to save yourself._ ’ A-and, when Chat Noir told me he trusted me to hold him back, I had this vision of another ladybug and black cat from, like, ancient Greece or something, and he had blood on his hands and face and there were dead soldiers in the background and she was getting ready to, to-” Marinette broke off, sobbing into her hands, and then into Alya’s shoulder when she pulled her close. 

“Shh, it’s okay Marinette. You two are gonna have a happy ending, I promise. You and Chat Noir will both be fine, I promise. One day you’ll get married and have a million catbug babies and everything will be okay.”

Marinette giggled. “I’m not so sure about _that_. But I hope it’s a happy ending. Chat Noir deserves it, I feel like he’s not very happy and he just doesn’t show it.” She sighed. “This has been another one of those times when I don’t know if I have what it takes to be Ladybug. The light bending… that’s a lot of power and I’m not sure how much I want it.”

“Yeah, but if you didn’t, a lot more people would have died in that building. And just think about what that Shade would have done.”

Marinette nodded. “Yeah. That’s what I’m trying to think about and not- um.”

“Um?”

“No, Alya, if I tell you you’ll make fun of me!”

“Oh, now you have to tell me!” Alya said, tickling her friend.

Marinette shrieked and tapped out. “No, no, uncle! Stop, you’re terrible, I’ll tell you.” Once released, she backed away. “When I was bending light the first time, to kill the Shade, I got these feelings from a past ladybug who had killed another one. I think, like, the powers were trying to show me how to use them, and I was getting all these mental images to show how using the powers is supposed to feel and…”

“You saw Adrien naked?”

“What? No!”

“ _Chat Noir naked?_ ”

“OhmygodnoAlyastop,” Marinette groaned. “One of them was Adrien smiling, and then Chat Noir’s eyes.”

“His eyes?”

Marinette nodded. “It sounds like a terrible romance novel, but his eyes are actually really pretty, especially at night when you can see the moon’s reflection in his eyes and-”

“Oh my God you _do_ like Chat Noir!”

Marinette groaned. “See, I said you would make fun of me!”

“It’s okay, I know Adrien is your one true love. Hey, maybe if you’re lucky you can get _two_ pretty blond boys in your bed at once~” Alya giggled and ran away before she could be punched. She stopped when she saw Tikki floating up to whisper something in Marinette’s ear. “Oh my God what is that?” she asked, pointing to the little spotted creature.

“Hm? Oh, this is Tikki,” Marinette explained. “She’s a kwami, she’s the one who actually turns me into Ladybug.”

“Aw, she’s so cute!” Alya squealed.

Tikki smiled. “Thank you, but, speaking of Ladybug, I think you and Chat Noir need to go back to the catacombs. Plagg and I were talking about it and I’m sure we’re wrong, but there’s a possibility that whoever released the Shade is still alive.”

Alya’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit. No, that’s way more important than answering my thousands of questions, we’ll tell your parents we’re going to the park together,” she said, standing up. “Come on.”

Marinette smiled. This was going to be _so_ much easier now that she had help making excuses.

Ladybug met Chat Noir halfway on the way to the catacombs. “Looks like we had the same thing in mind,” she said.

“Yeah. I was about to call you, actually.”

They landed near the entrance of the catacombs and Ladybug frowned when she saw that her partner was visibly nauseous. “Chat, are you alright?”

Chat nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine, it’s just the smell. I’m sure the blood has dried enough that you can’t smell it but- _ugh_ it’s bad.”

“We can do this later if-”

“ _No_. I’ll be fine.”

They waded through the crowds of journalists that had materialized at their arrival, and explained to the police officer overseeing the investigation what they were there for. He shook their hands and sent a trio of armed policemen with them.

As they took the first step into the caverns, Chat Noir instinctively wrapped his hand around his partner’s. He smiled in pleasant surprise when she squeezed his hand. “Let’s roll,” he murmured.


	12. Everything Hawkmoth Does Smells Like Really Shitty Incense

Ladybug and Chat Noir held hands as they entered the cool catacombs. Neither would admit it, but they were both afraid of what might be lurking inside. 

Chat squeezed her hand as his pupils widened to let in as much light as possible as they entered the caverns. If asked, he would brush it off, saying that he was reassuring her, but really he was trying not to vomit at the smell of blood. He didn’t have to ask which chamber this disaster had started in, he merely had to follow his nose.

“Hey, Chat?”

“Yes?”

“Let’s say that whoever it was that let out that Shade is still alive, and he’s down here. What’s your plan?”

Chat gulped. His instincts alternated between telling him to kill the sorcerer, or flee and seal the entirety of the catacombs forever. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’ll follow your lead.”

“Well _our_ plan is to shoot,” grumbled one of the armed men behind them.

This broke the tension and Chat laughed. “Glad to know we’ve got some protection in the _cat_ acombs.”

“With the cat puns, even now?”

“Hey, I need something here, the smell of blood is so strong I’m seeing the color red. But it might just be you shining through the dark, My Lady,” he flirted. 

Ladybug shuddered. “Let’s just clear the area and get back to daylight.”

Chat Noir felt that a _scary strings_ button needed to be added to his life’s soundtrack as they found the room where the Shade had been released. “Can you shed some light on what happened?”

Ladybug scowled, knowing he could see it, and managed to create a small but bright light in one of her hands, and flicked it up towards the ceiling so they could all see. Her eyes were drawn to the skeleton lying in a heap on the ground. She looked up when she heard a strange low noise coming from her partner’s throat, and saw that he was staring at the skeleton with a pained expression. “Chat? Are you alright?”

Chat groaned and ripped his eyes away. “Good question. That was the skeleton the Shade was bound in.”

“How do you know?”

“I watched him do it.” He turned his back on the body and looked around. All the corpses from the previous day - an entire tour group, by the looks of the massive bloodstains - had already been taken away to the morgue. 

Ladybug nodded. “He was a black cat, wasn’t he?”

“Joan of Arc’s partner. He didn’t have a bell and she was unconscious, so he bound it to his bones with a psalm.” He glanced down at the ring on his finger. “Since she took the ring after she woke up and kept it with her until she died, I suppose that makes this a religious relic,” he mused. 

He frowned when he noticed a marking on the wall. “This looks fairly new,” he said, wandering over to it. “It could have been made in the last few decades.” 

“What is it?”

Chat peered at the carved sigil and reached out to it. “I don’t know-”

“Chat don’t _touch_ it!”

 _Too late!_ Chat’s hand touched the carving and it lit up with blue light, and several more lit up around the room. “What the hell?” 

Ladybug looked around at the angular carvings around the doorway, at the corners of the room, and in the middle of every wall, the floor, and the ceiling. “What are these?” They didn’t feel like the sort of thing that would be involved in the release of some horrible monstrosity. They reminded her more of the presence of her mother than the horrible fear she felt in the presence of the Shade. 

“I don’t know,” Chat Noir murmured. His mind raced, trying to work out what it was. He got a vague idea of another Miraculous holder, but nothing else. Apparently Plagg hadn’t been around for this. “But it feels… it feels like somebody was trying to keep the Shade in? Look how the sigils are faded around the door, they don’t glow as brightly. Whoever freed it had to break them somehow.”

“But how do you know the guy who released the Shade didn’t make them?”

Chat shook his head. “I really can’t tell you. It just doesn’t feel like it. Actually, I kinda feel like it might have been another Miraculous who made these, fairly recently too.”

“What, do you think Hawkmoth made them?”

Chat laughed. “No, everything Hawkmoth does smells like really shitty incense. I can’t smell much through the blood, but I would be able to make out that smell any day.” He leaned in close to the sigil and, not caring how weird it looked, breathed deeply. “Okay actually I do smell a little bit of normal frankincense. Maybe Hawkmoth used to be a good guy,” he mused, trying to identify the other thing he smelled. “Mostly I smell… mint? Yeah, like really fresh spearmint.”

“What does that mean?”

Chat shrugged. “I guess there’s a Miraculous that smells like mint. It’s certainly not either of us. Your magic smells like lemons, and mine smells like campfire smoke.” He turned around, and immediately focused on the far wall. “We’re being watched.”

“What? How do you know?” Ladybug asked, backing towards the door of the room.

“I saw eyes.” A low, feline growl sounded in the back of Chat Noir’s throat as he crept across the room, eyes locked on something he saw between two stacks of bones. His tail thrashed from side to side and his hair seemed to be standing on end. Even the surly officers screamed when he screeched like an angry cat and leapt back because the thing had moved. 

“Chat Noir, it’s just a…” Ladybug’s eyes widened when she saw that the little dark grey cat that was creeping out from between the stacks of bones had dried blood running down its chest. “Zombie cat?”

“With a leash,” Chat growled, seeing the tendril of shadow connecting to the creature’s neck. The magic on the cat smelled like death, a combination of blood, hospital disinfectant, and mold. “Okay. Insane evil sorcerer. Given that your watcher is still watching, I’m going to assume you’re some kind of alive, and I want you to know that while human sacrifice to unbind an omnicidal sentient shadow is definitely not okay, animal cruelty bumps you to the top of my list. So I’m going to destroy the cat and then seal the catacombs. Ciao.” Cringing at the thought of touching something dead, he put one finger to the cat’s head and gave the command for Cataclysm. “Okay let’s get the _fuck_ out of here,” he said, standing up and resisting the urge to run screaming.

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” said one of the officers, and all five of them speed-walked silently out of the catacombs. 

Once out of the catacombs, Chat Noir pushed his way through the crowds of journalists, found a trash can, and vomited up everything he had eaten in the past week.

Ladybug turned green when she heard what he was doing and slipped inside a fast-food bathroom to follow his lead.

They met back at the entrance to the catacombs a few minutes later. “So, are you ready to seal this off?” Chat Noir asked in monotone.

“Uh, isn’t this a major to-”

“Fuck the tourism money.”

Ladybug pursed her lips. “Yeah, I can’t argue with you on that. So what, are we just gonna make a slab of solid light and shadow and lay it down?”

“I’m too damn tired to do anything else. It won’t last too long but it’ll do until we’re emotionally alive enough to properly seal it.”

“ _Wait!_ ”

The superheroes groaned as one at the sound of the Mayor’s voice. “What?” Ladybug snapped.

“You can’t seal the catacombs! They’re an important tourist attraction! They’re part of our local her-”

“With all due respect, Mr. Mayor, fuck the money and local heritage,” Chat Noir snarled. “I just puked up everything I’ve ever eaten because the smell of blood down there is so damn thick. At least a dozen tourists fucking _died_ yesterday, at least one of them was _specifically sacrificed_ to free the Shade that one of _my_ predecessors bound in the first place,” he continued, brandishing his ring and not giving a rat’s ass that he was yelling at the Mayor, “and the freak that did it is still alive! I know this because he was _watching_ us through the eyes of a mother _fucking zombie cat_. I’d bet a thousand euros that he’s down there. So, do you really want me to keep the catacombs open? _Or do you want to see the bloodbath for yo-_ ”

“ _Chat Noir, calm down!_ ”

Chat realized that he was baring his claws and fangs and took a step back. “Yes, My Lady,” he muttered, still glaring acid-green daggers at the Mayor.

Ladybug cleared her throat. “Sir, the sorcerer that released the Shade is still alive. He’s at least powerful enough to release it from its previous bindings, survive its attacks, raise a zombie cat to watch us, and he broke through another sorcerer’s spell just to get to the bound Shade. It’s really safest that nobody be allowed to enter the catacombs until we can find and…” she swallowed when she realized that they might have to kill whoever it was in order to truly defeat him, “and stop him. 

“If I’m being completely honest,” Ladybug said, low so only Chat Noir and the Mayor could hear, “even with our new powers, at this point I think this sorcerer is beyond even us. We’ll re-open the catacombs eventually, but only once it’s safe. Okay?”

The Mayor started to argue, but shut his mouth when he saw the deadly look in Chat Noir’s eyes. “Fine. I wish you the best, and I promise cooperation from the police department to keep people from getting into the catacombs.”

Ladybug managed to smile. “Thank you, Mr. Mayor.” She shook her head as he walked off and turned to Chat. “Let’s roll.”

Together, the two weaved together a great stone of solid light and shadow. It pulsed different shades of grey and smelled strongly of lemons and smoke as they laid it over the entrance to the catacombs. 

Satisfied, they bumped fists and went home.

Deep beneath the surface of Paris, in a part of the catacombs for which maps exist only in long-forgotten manuscripts, a man laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *dramatic music*
> 
> I don't know if any of you disagree, but I hate the smell of hospital disinfectant and it is the first thing I think of when an author writes that something smells like death.


	13. What Did I Just Watch?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mild warning for plagg has no fucking chill whatsoever - featuring (99%headcanon) LORE

“Okay, Plagg, do you want to explain to me why we’re on the floor of the warehouse in the middle of the day?”

Images flashed through Chat Noir’s head in rapid succession, the only way Plagg could communicate while they were transformed. They got the message across well enough. “Gather shadows,” he whispered, and began to feel the shadows of the massive room. They were cold like ice, but as he pulled them closer, they became more of a _fluffy snow_ cold, rather than a _deadly ice_ cold. 

Chat Noir moved the shadows deftly, and for a while that was all he did. He simply moved about the vast space in a wide circle, pulling shadow along with him. He felt amusement from Plagg as he made a dance of it, darting about with small, graceful steps and turns. When he felt ready, he started to weave the shadows into solid forms, experimenting with creating different sorts of solidity. 

The ball of shadow that bounced off the wall was cool like a breeze after getting out of a pool, while the one that simply smooshed on the ground felt like cold mud sliding down his arm. A ball of shadow glass that shattered on impact had felt prickly, like long cactus thorns, as he created it, and the one that simply rolled across the floor felt like a cool stone. As he practiced taking the shadows through different textures and states of matter, he felt approval, but an urge to move on, and try to copy what he had seen in the images. For good measure, Plagg showed them to him again. 

Chat Noir nodded, understanding. Creating different kinds of solidity was like practicing scales and arpeggios, just a warm-up. Now it was time to try the actual music. He started with an etude, bending and pressing the shadows like clay, until he was faced with his own form rendered in solid shade. He smiled when he felt Plagg urging him to stop messing around and dispelled the Shadow Noir. 

He took a deep breath and began to move around the room again; the shadows seemed to come easier to him when he was moving. As he moved in a wide circle, he drew shadows into the center of the room, right where light came in through a broken window high on the wall. When he was satisfied with the size of the orb in front of him - about seven feet long, two feet wide, and four feet tall - he started to _shape_ it. 

Chat Noir flinched as he pressed his arms and conscious into the shadow. It was _cold_ , so cold it took his breath away. Plagg reassured him by giving him feelings from past black cats who had been masters of the shadows, how the darkness became comfortable to them and they could even make it burn like fire, and urged him on with another image of what he wanted his charge to create. So he thought of it like a swimming pool in the middle of a hot summer day and eased his way into it. 

The cat moved his hands, eyes half-lidded as he kept the image in his head. Though the shadows were difficult to move and flowed viscous like syrup, he managed to shape them into a solid version of what he saw in his mind’s eye. He watched as a thin shadow emerged from his ring and slipped into what he created, and he understood exactly what it was: a vessel, a form for Plagg to take on that would allow him to communicate properly without de-transforming.

The vessel Plagg had directed him to create was _horrible_ , in the original sense of the word. If you saw it from a distance, it would look like a strangely-proportioned cat, but if you saw it up close, you would see that it had four unblinking, acid green eyes. Its neck was long like a giraffe’s and moved like a snake, and its paws were too large. They had too many digits and the digits were too long. Each paw had a strange extra digit off to the side, and they were altogether reminiscent of eagles’ talons. Great tendrils of shadow stretched from its cheeks and from above its eyes, more similar to catfish barbs or jellyfish tentacles than cat whiskers.

“What the hell…” Chat Noir gulped and took a step back as the Plagg-construct spoke.

“Thank you, Chat Noir, this form is _much_ more comfortable.”

Chat shivered at its voice, it was too deep and too immersive - he didn’t hear it so much as he felt it rumble in his chest. “Uh…”

“In fact, I don’t think I’ll be returning to the ring. Oh yes, I like this form much better. If you want me to go back into it, you’ll have to _make_ me.”

“Uhhh…” The logical part of his brain was telling Chat Noir that his kwami was simply acting, getting him into the training game. But the old, ancient part that held much more sway in the face of demon cats told him to either run away, kill it, or run away and bring back help to kill it. He cleared his throat and hardened his expression, understanding that while Plagg wouldn’t hurt him, not badly at least, the devil cat really would make him force him back into the Miraculous ring. “Okay, Plagg, I will.” 

Chat Noir looked around, and smiled. He gathered shadows over the windows, blocking out all the light and sending the warehouse into pitch blackness.

“I don’t see what you think you’ll get out of that, boy, I see just as well in the dark as you do.”

Chat just smirked, and poked a hole in the shadows over one window, creating a laser-esque point of light on the floor. He stifled a laugh as he saw all four of Plagg’s monstrous eyes focus on it. _Go play, kitty kitty_ , he thought and moved the light around the floor. Were it not for the way the shadow creature fell smack in the middle of uncanny valley, the scene of a massive cat demon chasing a laser would have been _hilarious_. Slowly, carefully, he let the operation of the roving light fall to one corner of his brain, the same way he would put footwork on the back burner in a waltz so he could flirt with his partner. 

While keeping the Plagg-construct occupied with his makeshift laser, Chat Noir pulled his baton from his back and stretched it to a ten-foot length, a distance that would give him plenty of clearance from that serpentine neck. He bounced it in his hand, moving it forward so he held one end. He took a breath, focused the point of light right between the crouched monster’s front paws, and lunged for the spot between its shoulder blades. 

Chat Noir made a noise that was more grunt than scream as he was batted out of the the air. 

“I heard your footsteps, try again, boy.”

“God, Plagg, isn’t training supposed to be non-lethal?” he sputtered, wheezing as he regained his breath.

“Come on, you’re young and spry, you can’t take a forty-thousand year old geezer like me?”

Chat Noir forced himself to his feet. “Forty years old is a geezer. Forty thousand is a motherfucking _god_ ,” he said, and launched himself at Plagg again, aiming for the top left eye this time. 

“Gods are nothing more than constructs of collective human consciousness,” the cat demon said, batting Chat Noir out of the air again. “Seeing that cats are cute and cuddly to humans now, and not the predators lurking and hunting you in the dark, I’ve actually grown weaker. You should be able to take me before I take _you_ ,” Plagg snarled, extending his neck to a surreal length and making to bite the boy in half.

Chat Noir acted on instinct and smacked the horrible creature in the teeth with his baton. To his gleeful surprise, one of the dripping white fangs snapped in half and the demon lurched backwards, retracting its eel neck. The shadows over the windows had dissipated when he was being batted around and he looked around, searching for some element of his surroundings to use to his advantage. His distraction gave Plagg the opportunity to send him flying once more. 

Chat screamed as he was batted around by the massive paws, not from pain, but simply from absolute terror as he was treated like a mouse. Finally, he got sick of being treated like prey and a lion’s roar erupted from his chest and he went to draw his baton again, but it was on the ground elsewhere. 

“Kitten’s not broken, is he?” Plagg teased. He grinned, showing his multiple series of teeth, when Chat Noir responded in the negative. “Good, then I can keep playing with you-”

“That’s enough!” Chat Noir roared. When one of the great paws came for him again, he pushed it back and aside, and leapt away.

Plagg laughed. “There’s the little shadowbender! Now this is much more fun!”

Chat growled deep in his throat, ears laid back. Snarling with his pupils wide and hair standing up, he looked just as much like an angry cat as his kwami. He moved his hand to direct a shadow to bring him his baton, and froze when he realized the shadows weren’t responding to him. Seeing that all the shadows were gathering up behind Plagg and taking ominous forms, he paled. “Come on dude, not fair.”

“Real fights don’t have rules of fair play. Figure it out, boy.”

Chat’s ears flicked and his eyes roved around. He caught sight of the windows, and the sunlight flooding in, and followed the angle of the light to the ground. He smiled. _Of course. He can’t bend_ my _shadow_. He grabbed his baton with his shadow and split it in two, extended each portion. He set to spinning each portion around himself, creating two shields as he worked out a plan. _Okay, he may be an insane demon cat, but he’s a_ cat. _I can deal with a cat._

Cats were sight predators, primarily. Both of them saw equally well in light and dark, so he couldn’t do anything about that other than get in Plagg’s blind spot and stay there. Next were hearing and smell. His insane kwami had told him he could hear his footsteps… Chat Noir bound his shadow under his feet. He stumbled for a moment as he figured out how to walk, how to make it feel like he had tied large sponges to his feet when really he was floating in the air. He couldn’t do much about smell, either, nor all the sense receptors that were inevitably in the nightmare creature’s whiskers, constantly analyzing air currents to work out where its prey was.

Cats’ bellies were sensitive, that was the thought that had Chat Noir slipping between Plagg’s front and back legs. He prayed that he wasn’t committing suicide by rolling onto his back so he could take his twin staves, shove them into the monster’s (hopefully) soft flesh, and drag them down. His ears laid flat against his head and he cringed as the scream the cat let out seemed to be trying to make his head explode. 

Plagg leapt away, grinning like the unholy lovechild of a shark and the Cheshire cat. “Clever move, but you’re missing the point. Do you want to end Hawkmoth?”

“Yes!” Chat Noir snarled.

“You want to end the sorcerer who released the shade?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“You want me not to strike your girlfriend through the wall?”

“ _YES - WHAT?!_ ” 

“ _TOO LATE!_ ” Plagg taunted, batting Ladybug - who had come running the second she heard that earth-shattering scream - against a pillar. He laughed at the way his charge turned red and looked back and forth between him and his partner. “She’ll be fine, pretty boy, this is our fight. Are you angry?”

Chat Noir’s eye twitched. “Yes I’m angry!”  
“Good. _Use it_ ,” the demon cat commanded. “There hasn’t been a single black cat in history who wasn’t existentially pissed off. All of you have been depressed and anxious and angry, it comes with the territory of shadows. When you look into the void, it will look back. Do you want to succumb to your powers?”

“No!”

“Do you want to control them? Want to be a creator and not a destroyer?”

“Yes!”

“Then learn to use your anger. Not like that!” the cat taunted as his charge made a sloppy attempt to pull part of Plagg’s wall of shadow towards himself, and used the wall to pound the boy across the room to slam against the same pillar Ladybug was at.

“Chat, what the _fuck_ is going on?” Ladybug hissed.

“Stay out of it!” the black cats snarled as one. Chat regretted yelling at her instantly, but that was washed away by Plagg’s grating voice.

“Anger makes you sloppy, boy. You need some _rage._ Your girlfriend bends light with the powers of love, it’s very sappy, but the shadows are the realm of rage. Are you ready to take control of your inner shadows and become one of the greatest shadowbinders that will ever live? Or will you be one of the ones who is consumed? Tell me, _Chat Noir_ , are you ready to bind a _god_?”

Another low growl sounded in Chat’s chest as he forced himself to his feet. “You know what?”

The cat demon smiled and luxuriously licked one of its paws. “What?”

“Plagg is a fucking _stupid_ name for a god,” the blond snarled, and Ladybug’s eyes widened when he let out a roar like an entire pride of lions. 

There was a horrendous noise like metal scraping against metal as Chat Noir dragged the wall of shadow behind himself, bringing it to his side and binding it to his will.

The great cat laughed. “And the shadowbinder has awoken! How does it feel?”

Chat Noir smiled his own Cheshire smile, baring his own fangs. “It feels like you’re going to get back in the goddamned ring,” he said, and flicked a band of shadow out of the wall to muzzle and blindfold the great cat. He sprinted towards the demon, drawing ropes of shadow out to bind it physically so that he could thrust his left hand into its chest and put his kwami in his place.

Much to Chat Noir’s annoyance, all the Plagg-construct did was shrink down to the size of a very, very strange housecat. 

“Very, very good. Now, in reality, it is impossible for you to force me to do anything, that is simply my nature. But I firmly believe that you have quite a lot of potential. When I said that you may become one of the greatest shadowbinders to ever live I was entirely serious.” Plagg smiled. “And I think that you seeking psychological counseling will actually help you learn how to interact with the shadows in your mind and weaponize them. Therefore, I will be making you go no matter how opposed your stubborn ass is to getting help.”

“Uh, thanks?”

“You’re entirely welcome.” Plagg looked his charge up and down, sniffing him thoroughly. “You’re not broken, are you?”

“No, though I think you managed to turn me into a giant bruise,” Chat said, slumping down to the ground. “Why was it so much easier to work the shadows when we were clearing that building?”

“Because you were doing it sloppily, and because it was the heat of the moment. This will become easier,” Plagg said, curling up in his charge’s lap. “One day, kid, all the shadows of Paris and beyond will be yours.”

“I think I’m good with just Paris, for now,” Chat Noir responded, petting the little cat demon’s head before he could think about it.

Ladybug gaped. “What did I just watch?”

Chat laughed, and winced. “Oh, laughing hurts. Uh, you just watched a training fight.”

“Don’t worry, Ladybug,” Plagg said as he purred. “I’m sure Tikki will be putting you through the same thing.”

“Plagg, since when do you purr?” Chat Noir asked, scratching under the kwami’s chin.

“I purr since the frequency cats purr at promotes bone growth. Could you get right behind my left shoulder blade? _Oh, there it is,_ ” the cat muttered happily.

Chat looked over at Ladybug, who was still staring at him with her mouth hanging open. “I’m alright, My Lady,” he said, taking her hand to kiss the back of it.

Ladybug was too much in shock to properly register that her partner was kissing the back of her hand until he actually did so. “You’re really warm, do you know that?”

Chat nodded. “It’s a side effect of the transformation; cats run hotter than people. I’m sure you’ve noticed similar changes - being sleepy in the winter, when ladybugs hibernate, having something of a green thumb, that kind of thing.”

Ladybug nodded. “That might explain why my peripheral vision has gotten so wide.”

“Probably.”

The young heroes sat and chatted for some time, with Chat Noir making a number of reassurances to Ladybug that he was truly okay, just bruised. Finally, Plagg slipped back into Chat’s ring. “My Lady, I hate to leave, but I would quite like to shower and I don’t think you want to watch.”

Ladybug blinked. “Wait, where even have you been showering this whole time?”

Chat Noir laughed as he stood and gave her a hand up. “I’ve been sneaking into gyms after hours, though a good friend of mine recently figured out who I was, so I think I’m going to go to his place to shower and then probably crash on his couch for a few hours. I need a cat nap.”

Ladybug sighed and shook her head. “Chat Noir, I worry about you. You’ll be okay?”

Chat smiled. “Of course, My Lady,” he said, kissed her hand once more, and left for Nino’s house.

Ladybug watched him leave and then frowned. “Tikki, what did Plagg mean when he said you would be putting me through the same thing?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was fun to write I had fun  
> idk how long it'll be til I write the next chap cause I'm still working out what tikki's scary godmode form is gonna look like - there might be a couple chaps in between this and that, I'm about to go think it over in the pool  
> fUN fACT: by 40K years ago, humans had colonized all of afro-eurasia, plus australia. the americas were inhabited by 20-15K years ago, and large portions of oceania were only colonized aboit 2K years ago. Agriculture became a thing about 10,000 years ago, so the kwami are four times as old as civilization (in my headcanon)
> 
> Also: first person to figure out where I got the idea of binding the Shade with bells gets a free drawing of Chat Noir pole dancing ;D (or your other favorite scene so far if that's not your cup of tea - i will not draw anything from the sin bin)


	14. Gabriel Fashion Stocks Plummet in Face of Child Abuse Rumors

Chat Noir grimaced when he looked in Nino’s window and saw him and Alya making out on the couch. _Sorry to walk in_ , he thought as he firmly rapped on the glass with one knuckle. He could feel bruises already forming from the beating he had taken from Plagg, and he wanted a warm shower with decent pressure dammit.

The young lovebirds jumped, and Alya’s eyes nearly popped out of her head when she saw Chat Noir sporting two cuts on his jaw and a beautiful black eye. 

“Dude, what happened to you?” Nino demanded after he opened the window for his friend. “You look like you’ve had the shit beat out of you.”

“Mm, yes, that’s because I got the shit beat out of me. Can I use your shower?”

Nino blinked. “Uh, yeah, sure. It’s in there,” he said, pointing to his bathroom. “Why exactly did you get beat up?”

“Tell you later. Shower now, then food, then explanation. Promise,” Chat Noir grunted as he trudged into the bathroom and shut the door behind him. 

Alya stared at her boyfriend. “So, when exactly were you planning to tell me that you’re on friendly enough terms with Chat Noir that he uses your shower?”

Nino gulped. “Uh, it’s kinda new since a couple days ago. Well, actually, I knew Chat Noir the entire time, I just didn’t know until a couple days ago. Alya?”

The girl stared for a little longer, and then giggled. This quickly spiralled into full-fledged cackling until she fell off the couch. 

“Alya?”

Alya grinned. “Hey guess what? I know who Ladybug is too.”

Nino raised his eyebrows. “Really? Does she know who Chat is?”

Alya shook her head. “Not a clue, and I already know Chat doesn’t know who she is.”

“Uh, actually…”

“What? Is there something I don’t know?”

“Chat knows who Ladybug is, he just also knows she’d be upset if he knew, so he pretends to not know.”

Chat Noir groaned and stretched, feeling the soreness in his muscles before de-transforming. _Time to assess the damage._ He smiled at Plagg, who immediately dropped asleep on a stack of towels, stripped, and then turned to his reflection. He winced. There were already dark bruises forming over his entire body, it was a miracle he hadn’t broken anything. It looked just as painful as it felt. 

It dawned on Adrien suddenly that he hadn’t properly looked at himself in a mirror in a little over a month. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw that, without even noticing it, he had bulked up significantly. There was no tight skin and chiseled muscle like on a body builder - he knew that that look came from dehydration - but everything was well-defined. His shoulders had started to broaden as well. He certainly didn’t have the shoulder/hip ratio of a Dorito, and in his own opinion he still had something of a baby face, but he looked a lot closer to something that could be defined as a man than he had at the start of the summer. 

This thought made him smile as he stepped into the shower. It was amazing what had happened now that he was eating like an athlete rather than a model, he could swear he had even gotten a little taller. He smirked. _You might even call it a miraculous transformation._

“Wait, Nino, is Chat-”

“I think he’d be more comfortable if you asked him yourself, Alya.” Nino smiled at the look of frustration on his girlfriend’s face. “Tell you what, let’s listen to the recordings from our jam session.”

When Chat Noir emerged from the bathroom, he watched with amusement as his friends aggressively sang along with the recordings. “See Nino? I told you, that’s platinum right there.” He raised an eyebrow when Alya was immediately right in front of him. 

“So Adrien, how come you never told us you were Chat Noir?”

Chat sighed in relief. “Oh thank _God_ ,” he said as he de-transformed. “I did _not_ feel like being transformed." 

Adrien walked over to the couch and collapsed with a grunt. “I have only now learned the true definition of the word _sore_.” He glanced up at Alya with a smile. “How’d you guess?”

“You’re the only person on this Earth close enough to Nino that he wouldn’t question you coming in through his window in the middle of the day to use his shower. What happened to you?”

“Plagg has no chill, that’s what happened,” the blond groaned. “When he said we’d be training today I didn’t think that would involve fighting.”

The tiny black cat, now in his normal form, rolled his eyes. “And what exactly did you think we were going to do, have a tea party? Today was just the beginning, kid.”

Adrien just grumbled something.

“So, you got the shit beat out of you by that adorable tiny creature?” Alya asked.

“No, I got the shit beat out of me by a seven foot long cat demon,” Adrien said. “He had me create a vessel for him to control without de-transforming me, and then I got my ass handed to me.”

“If I remember correctly, you _did_ steal the shadows back from me.”

“Yeah, after you batted me around like a mouse.”

“So basically it was the sparring match from hell?” Nino asked.

“Yep.”

“And Ladybug is probably having hers right now,” Plagg said.

Adrien opened one eye. “So what, is the warehouse our new official sparring arena?”

“Do you know any better place?”

“True. Hey Nino?”

“Yeah?”

Adrien sat upright and bit his lip. “I hate to be a burden, but do you have any food?”

Nino gave him a look. “Dude. You are my literal _best_ friend. If you have a crazy magic fight and you need to fuel up afterwards, you don’t even have to ask.”

Alya clapped her hands together with a gleeful smile. “Oh, Adrien my dear boy you haven’t witnessed the magic that is my pantry stew!”

“Sounds filling, I’ll take it. Thank you, you guys, it means a lot.”

Thirty minutes later, Nino and Alya watched in amusement as Adrien lost himself in Alya’s stew. “Oh my God, Alya, this is the best thing I’ve ever had.”

Alya put her hand over her heart as she felt it break. “Adrien… That’s literally ground beef and a bunch of random vegetables from Nino’s pantry with onions and cumin.”

“It’s the best.”

“Dear God your father really was starving you.”

Adrien laughed. “Yeah, a model’s diet doesn’t really work when you’re also a superhero. Just for fun I calculated it a couple weeks ago and I’m eating literally three times more than I was before leaving.”

“Oh! Speaking of, I saw an article in the paper this morning that I thought you’d be interested in,” Nino said, getting up to look in the pile of newspapers on the coffee table.

Adrien took the paper and felt his jaw drop when he saw the headline. “Gabriel Fashion Stocks Plummet in Face of Child Abuse Rumors.” He smiled. “Okay, I wasn’t expecting that, but I’m not gonna fight it,” he said as he skimmed the article. 

“The entire fashion world is boycotting your father,” Nino said.

“I see that. I almost feel bad for the guy. _Almost_.” He flipped the page to where the article was continued. “I know why he’s the way he is, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay.” Adrien shook his head and put the paper down. “But hey, I guess if fear of losing profit is what gets him to admit he’s been a horrible father, I’m cool with that.” He sighed. “I just wish he’d do it cause he cared about _me_.”

Alya surprised the blond by pulling him into a hug. “Oh, you poor kid. If you want a place to stay with people, I’m sure I could convince my parents to let you crash on the couch. You’re a good guy, Adrien, even before the whole superhero thing, you know that?”

“Um.”

“I’m serious,” Alya said, looking him in the eye. “You’re one of the most genuinely nice people I know. You’re even nice to Chloe, and you don’t deserve to be alone or squat in an abandoned warehouse your whole life. Okay?”

Adrien buried his face in his hands, blushing and failing to not cry. “You guys are w-way too nice.” He cried openly when he felt Nino and Alya both hugging him. 

“Just let it out, bro,” Nino said, awkwardly patting his friend’s back. “We’re all gonna be okay.”

“This is not okay, this is not okay, this is not okay!” Marinette exclaimed, pacing around the empty warehouse. “Tikki, how am I supposed to do this? I don’t want these powers, I just want Hawkmoth to stop being Hawkmoth and then I want to go home and live a normal life and become a designer. I don’t want to be a, a lightbinder, okay?”

Tikki frowned. “Marinette, please, just trust me.”

“You saw Chat Noir and Plagg fighting! That was terrifying, I don’t want to fight you like that, you _saw_ how he was just batted against the wall like he was nothing!”

“And _you_ saw that Chat Noir regained control of the shadows and overpowered Plagg.”

“Tikki, I don’t _want_ to fight you,” Marinette wailed.

“And I don’t _want_ to see another of my charges die young!” Tikki snapped. “I don’t want to teach you to use these powers, but with that horrible sorcerer on the loose neither of us have a choice! Do you understand that? There is a good reason Plagg and I stopped teaching our heroes these powers, but we’ve had forty thousand years to perfect our methods, so you’re going to trust me on this. Do you want to stop Hawkmoth?”

“Yes!”

“Do you want to save Paris from whoever released the Shade?”

“ _Yes!_ ”

“Then give the command to transform!”

“ _Tikki, spots on!_ ”

Ladybug breathed, calming herself at Tikki’s urging. She flinched when the kwami gave her images, showing her how to interact with the light that flowed in through the high windows. “Okay, you can do this,” she told herself, standing in the light. She started to bend it and it was hot. After a moment of cringing, as she pulled more light towards herself, it became less _thousand degree oven_ hot and more _fresh baked_ hot. 

Eventually, Ladybug grew comfortable with the images as they came, and copied what she was shown to do, feeling how different manipulations worked. A river of light that coursed through the air felt like a sunburn, where an effusive glow that lit even the furthest corners was like wearing a wool sweater in summer. She felt approval from Tikki, along with an urge to try something else. 

Ladybug experimented with creating solid shapes with the light, small cubes and pyramids and cylinders. She smiled to herself when she created a full set of dice, but dispelled them when Tikki gave her another image of what she wanted her to create.

Ladybug steeled herself and pulled more sunlight into the room, noticing how it took on a slight pink hue when she manipulated it. _Pink? With this shade of red?_ judged the fashion designer in her, but she brushed it off. She stood back and looked at the pillar she had built, eight feet tall and only a few feet wide and across. Wincing, she pushed her hands into the light and immediately pulled them out. It _burned_. The images that Tikki gave her of past ladybugs who had mastered the light, who made it comfortable and could make it freeze like ice were hardly comforting, but she pushed her hands back in anyway. It was something that had to be done, so she tried to think of it like reaching into an oven to check the progress of something inside.

It was a painful, burning process, but finally Ladybug had created what she saw in the images.

As a shade of Tikki flew from her earrings and animated it, she wished she hadn’t.

From a distance, the construct was graceful, beautiful even, a towering figure draped in translucent red silk. Up close, the red silk was a hundred thousand plates of thin, hard, razor-sharp armor. It looked down on Ladybug with six neon blue compound eyes, and long antennae stretched from the top of its head. The way the antennae gently swayed was captivating, not least because of the dangerous barbs at their ends. Its legs were bent like those of an ostrich, its top set of arms were tipped with long, bony hands. The middle set of limbs were attached to a strange, bulbous joint that seemed to allow them to function as a second pair of feet or a second set of hands. 

“Very good, Ladybug,” the Tikki-construct said in its high voice like the buzzing of cicadas. “Now that you have released me from your Miraculous, your task is to put me back.”

Ladybug gulped. “I thought Plagg said it was impossible to force you to do anything.” She shivered when the insectoid’s mouthparts moved into an awful parody of a smile. 

“You listen well. It is true, my counterpart and I cannot be forced into any action. However, we can be convinced to do things. At its core, this exercise is to see if you can bend the light without my guidance. I will return to the Miraculous when I have deemed you worthy of my power. Let’s begin,” the great insect said, and launched one of its barbed antennae at her charge.

Ladybug screamed and leapt away. She knew her kwami wouldn’t pierce her with the actual barbs, but she didn’t want to be hit with the blunt end either. She started to call for her Lucky Charm, but the yo-yo was snatched from her hand by one of the barbs and thrown away. “What?”

“You’ll need to work the light.”

Ladybug scowled, dodging another blow. “How? I barely understand what I’m doing when I do it?”

“Don’t think about it, let the light flow. You must!”

“ _How?_ ”

“Figure it out, that’s how. You’ll learn by combat.” The Tikki-construct lifted one spindly arm and armored scales flew off of it at Ladybug.

Ladybug screamed again when she saw the projectiles and felt her hands burn. She looked up and saw that she had created a shield. _Okay, Ladybug, you can do this. She’s still Tikki, even if she does look like something from a weird nightmare_. She felt her muscles strain as she pulled the shield apart into two, and bent them into a new version of her yo-yo. And then it disappeared. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me, Tikki,” she groaned as the kwami organized all the light in the room into four great orbs, held in each of its hands. 

“Not at all. You’ve manipulated the light, now you have to _take_ it.”

Ladybug bit her lip, trying not to cry from sheer frustration. She decided she had had enough, and so she sprinted towards the coccinellid monster, a red blur. She screamed as she was kicked in the side by one of those powerful legs, and she felt a line of those sharp armor scales lodge in her arm. 

“Rage is not your weapon, girl,” the Tikki-construct intoned as her charge pulled blades from her own skin. “The black cat must soften his anger so he can mold it to his will. Your challenge is to harden your love. Love and rage are two sides of the same coin, equally capable of destruction and creation. I chose you because you had the spirit to create already - you want to be a designer, do you not?”

“Yes,” Ladybug snapped. That buzzing insect voice was beginning to get under her skin.

“Then you already have the potential. So, make it happen. Create your design for how this fight will go.”

Ladybug rolled and dodged another blow from the harpoon antennae, and jumped to her feet. She ran again at the creature, but leapt and used its head as a springboard - and was thrown across the room by a barbed antenna wrapped around her ankle. She caught herself on a narrow pole on the other side of the room - to her horror she realized it was the stripper pole - and used her legs to swing herself back towards Tikki, flying through the air on momentum alone. 

Her eyes widened as an image crossed her mind - this wasn’t like the visions Tikki gave her to build the construct, though. It was the kind of vision she had when she came up with a great design. She let the image flow through her body the way she would let a new dress flow to her drawing hand. Her blue eyes hardened as she approached the kwami, and she felt the warmth of the first sunlight of spring as she seized the orbs of light. 

Ladybug skidded to a halt and turned on her feet. She constructed staves between pairs of orbs, and then stretched and loosened the staves. The orbs began to wheel around her as twin bolos, casting cacophonic shadows around the room. She smiled. “You like my design?” she asked sarcastically, and then rushed forwards and released the bolos. 

Tikki screeched as the spinning, weighted light twisted around her and bound her upper limbs to her sides. And laughed. “There you go. How does it feel now?”

Ladybug collapsed to the floor with a sigh as the construct shrunk down to a Jiminy Cricket sized creature. “I feel like I just rode the best roller coaster in the world.”

“And it will only get better from here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sweet jesus christ that was difficult to write - not emotionally, it just didn't want to get written
> 
> it took me 5ever to work out how to make Tikki's description beautiful in spite of being terrifying - she is a spirit of good luck and shit, alongside being an ancient bug being with the power to turn people into superheroes


	15. In This Lightning You Look Striking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for mild gore

Conveniently, Chat Noir was performing on the banks of the Seine when an unnatural thunder cracked in the river. He hissed at himself when the thunder sounded and he smelled bad incense in addition to ozone - he had been too deep in the music to smell the evil butterfly somewhere downriver. His tail thrashed and he sniffed the air, searching the dark thunderclouds for the victim. In the back of his mind, he really didn’t feel up to a fight. It had been a few days since his training duel with Plagg but he was still bruised. _There_.

The black cat shrouded himself in the evening shadows as he approached the akuma, searching it for the cursed item. He determined it to be the cufflinks, which glowed with a slight purple light. _Great. We’ll have to get close_. His eyes were drawn to the other side of the river when he saw a red blur in his peripheral vision. He pulled out his baton and pressed the button to communicate with Ladybug.

“Chat Noir? Why is your screen black? Where are you?”

“Don’t look for me, I’m using the shadows to hide myself and it won’t work if the akuma knows I’m here to be looked for. I’m right across the river from you. The akuma’s in his cufflinks.”

“You figured that out fast.”

“Always here to help, My Lady. Be careful of the water, we don’t want you getting electrocuted.”

“ _Or you_. I’ll distract him, you get the cufflinks.”

“Oh, you’re quite the distraction. In this lightning, you look _striking_.” Chat Noir giggled at her groan and closed the screen. 

Their approach actually went according to plan. Chat was almost directly beneath the akuma victim, priming to pounce and rip off the cufflinks before he would understand what was happening, but his attention was caught by a splash. To his horror, her yo-yo had slipped in the rain and she had landed smack in the middle of the river. Worse, the akuma was ignoring Hawkmoth’s directions of non-fatal force and leveling a bolt of lightning at the water. 

Ladybug wiped the water from her eyes, treading water. As she swam to the banks, she felt cold horror drip through her body, and started screaming when she saw Chat Noir extending his baton to catch the bolt of lightning being aimed at her. She started to yell at him not to, but it was too late, the electricity had already bent to the laws of physics and redirected itself to the metal staff. She didn’t even notice that she had climbed out of the river, her entire being was focused on the look of acceptance in her partner’s face. It was the same one when Chronogirl had ripped him out of the flow of time, when Dislocoeur had pierced his heart, the same one from her nightmare.

She started to relax when she realized that the lightning crackling around him wasn’t hurting him. His suit must have been acting as a Faraday cage. She turned her attention back to the akuma.

And then the lightning burned through Chat Noir’s gloves.

The entire world seemed to stop moving as the great cat screamed. 

He was holding the staff with both hands, the gloves burned away, the lightning coursed through his body. Chat Noir was being electrocuted and it was the worst agony he had ever experienced. The pain ripped through his body and into the air with a bloodcurdling scream that would echo in Ladybug’s mind forever. He felt every muscle contract violently, he fell to his knees as he felt something important tear in his legs. If he kept screaming like this, he felt that he would rip his throat and start spitting blood like a dragon spit fire, but he couldn’t stop.

The akuma laughed. “Oh, what a sweet kitty trying to protect his mistress,” the man cooed. “It’s too bad you’re nothing.”

Ladybug’s breath hitched in her throat. She had never heard an akuma victim say anything that cruel, she couldn’t help wonder what sort of person the man was when in his right mind. 

These words caused something in Chat Noir’s heart to snap. The lightning was excruciating, he could barely hear himself think over his own screaming, but the words struck a match in his soul he didn’t know he had. The scream stopped. 

“You’re right,” he whispered, and yet the sound echoed. “I am nothing.” The words had crossed his mind countless times, and in his darkest moments he had believed them.

Ladybug’s hands went to her mouth. _No, Chat Noir, don’t say that_ , she begged, but the words couldn’t come out.

“But you wanna know the thing about nothing?” Chat Noir asked softly, eyes closed as he felt the chill of death at his back. “ _Nothing_ never breaks. _Nothing_ never rusts or shatters. _Nothing_ matters, and if you look too long into the void…” he paused and raised his head. Slowly, his eyes opened and glowed a vivid, unnatural green. “Eventually, _I look back_ ,” he snarled, and pulled one hand from the staff.

Lightning followed his hand, turning black as he made it his own and directed it back to its sender. 

Ladybug forced herself to look away from her partner, to take advantage of the distraction he had given her. She felt something harden within herself, a new resolve. As she leapt, she understood that she loved that insane alley cat more intensely than she loved anything else - not romantically, she loved him as a friend and a partner with whom she trusted everything. 

She felt her absolute love for her self-sacrificing companion solidify and become dense, and she felt the City of Lights bend to her.

Ladybug slammed into the akuma in a wave of pink light, pinning him to the banks of the river. She ripped the cufflinks from his sleeves, crushed them underfoot, captured, purified, and released the butterfly. In a daze of convulsing emotion, she returned to her partner and found her stomach in her throat. 

He was in a ball on the ground, weeping and holding his hands to his chest.

_No, no no no, the restoration was supposed to heal him_ \- Tears burned Ladybug’s eyes as Tikki explained to her through images of other battles that he had subjected himself to the burning lightning for too long, that injuries to organic matter took much more concentration to heal than injuries to buildings. “Chat Noir, it’s okay, I’m here,” she cried, feeling her stomach twist in knots.

“Ladybug, I hurt…” the blond whimpered, gasping in pain as he twitched and spasmed involuntarily. 

“I know, kitty, I know, where does it hurt?”

“E-everywhere.”

Ladybug hesitated. “Let me see your hands.” Her stomach rolled when he held out his palms to her. They weren’t just burnt, the flesh of his hands was literally charred. _Tikki, what do I do?_ She let images flow through her mind and to her hands. She concentrated on how desperately she wanted her partner to be okay, how much she _needed_ him to be okay. She would never tell him out loud, but she needed his stupid flirtatious puns in her life, she needed _him_ in her life. The healing light pressed out of her palms and into his, flowing like molasses.

Chat Noir’s eyes fluttered and he whined. Whatever magic his Lady was working was unpleasant. It was like a sunburn, and he wanted only slip into cool water… But if he put his head under, he wouldn’t be able to hear her soft voice. Yes, her voice was worth whatever pain he had to take to hear it. He couldn’t understand what she was saying, the part of his mind capable of understanding words was lost behind a snowdrift, but he understood that her voice was as soft as her hands, her hair, her smell… 

Ladybug gulped when her partner sneezed and squeaked from the pain of the motion. “Come on, kitty, stay with me,” she urged, forcing herself not to back away from the sight of burnt, dead skin sloughing off in favor of living flesh. “Are your hands starting to feel better?”

She had asked him a question. “My Lady…” he whispered. He couldn’t think, the heat on his hands and the cold at his back were combining to give him a headache. A deep rumble poured from his chest. It wasn’t a purr of contentment, it was his best attempt at hugging himself through the deep ache in his muscles. The sunburn was starting to spread up his arms and he whimpered. It was getting harder to tread water. 

Ladybug grew pale when the roaring purr began to sputter. “Chat Noir, come on, it’ll be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” she whispered, willing the healing light to move faster, easing the spasms in his arms and returning control to his body. The slow tears turned into a torrent when the purring stopped and his arms fell slack. She forced herself not to come undone completely and checked his pulse. 

Chat Noir was sinking, down and down. _This is a deep pool_ , he thought as the water grew dark. He looked up and saw light at the surface, started to swim to it, but he paused when he realized that there was another light below him. The lights wheeled around him, constantly changing positions. He didn’t know where to go. He frowned. He needed to get out of the pool. He didn’t want Ladybug to fall in, he couldn’t protect her if he wasn’t with her. 

Ladybug felt sweat run into her eye and ignored it as she pressed her hands into his sternum. _Stayin’ alive! Stayin’ alive! Ah, ah, ah, ah_ \- that song was much too cheery and upbeat, but she wasn’t about to think about Highway To Hell while she tried to bring her partner back. The statistic swam in her mind, that CPR didn’t work like it did in the movies, that she would most likely lose him anyway. She found herself thinking of his favorite musical. He had gone to duel for her honor and in doing so he had thrown away his shot. “Stay alive,” she whispered before tilting his head all the way back. 

Chat Noir flailed in the dark water. He felt the thumping heat on his chest move to his head, and the water grew colder in turn. Shadows were pulling at his limbs and he grew angry. He was the one who who _bent_ shadows, not the one who was bent by them. He drew a symbol in the water with one hand, mimicked it with his other, and the water began to boil. The chill wouldn’t take him from his Lady, not now, not ever. 

Ladybug moved her hands back to his chest. That had been the fourth set of breaths and she was growing tired, but she didn’t care. Her three-day-old bruises ached and smarted, her sore shoulders told her to stop, but she ignored them. She was barely conscious of Alya and Nino running up to them. 

“How can we help, do you need someone to take over?” Alya asked, skidding on her knees to the superheroes.

“Yes,” Ladybug grunted, moving aside so Alya could start doing compressions. She repositioned herself at Chat Noir’s head and raised her arms, drawing the last of the evening sunlight down her limbs. She pressed the pink light into him, praying that her magic would take, that the pink tint of life would return to her partner’s cheeks. 

Finally, those green eyes that looked at her like she was something holy, those green eyes that sparkled beneath starlight and glittered whenever he told a bad pun, finally they opened. Chat Noir screamed again, blood spittle gathering on his lips, his body tensing. He collapsed again. “Ladybug, Marinette, My Lady, My Princess,” he gasped, eyes clenched back shut. “ _Help me_ ,” he begged.

Ladybug’s eyes widened. “I’m here, kitty, I’m here, you’re gonna be okay. Open your mouth.”

Chat Noir obeyed the order, shuddering as he felt that strange, foreign heat flow down his throat and spread into his body. He gasped and groaned as the magic moved through him, putting him back together. The spasms and convulsions of his shocked, stunned muscles ceased. The process of muscle reattaching to tendon reattaching to bone was painful, but compared to the previous agony he took it as a blessing. He sobbed as he felt himself being pulled into warm, familiar arms. 

Ladybug pulled her whimpering partner close and squeezed him as he sobbed into her shoulder. “It’s alright, you’re alright. Do you hurt?”

“N-no, My L-lady.” Chat Noir wrapped his arms around her back, purring as hard as he could. “Don’t fall in,” he gasped, squeezing her close.

Ladybug furrowed her brows. “What?”

“Don’t fall in - I fell in - Don’t fall in it’s cold,” he babbled. “It’s c-cold and I d-d-didn’t know which way t-to go, you can’t f-fall in…”

Ladybug saw Alya and Nino pale in a way that mirrored her own reaction. _He’s talking about death… oh my God he was dead…_ “Don’t worry, mon chaton, I won’t fall in, I promise.” She rocked him back and forth for an age she didn’t feel like counting. “Come on, kitty, let’s get you someplace safe.”

Chat Noir nodded and let her pull him to stand up. And then he hugged her again. The journey to his makeshift home was a long one, constantly interrupted by desperate hugs. When they finally landed, he found himself holding on to her hand.

“Chat? ...Chat? Are you okay?”

Chat looked up, jumping slightly. “Oh, yes, My Lady, I’m fine,” he said, kissing her hand. “Just…”

Ladybug frowned. She didn’t like the way that Chat Noir was slightly hunched over, pulling his shoulders up and laying his ears back. “What’s wrong, Chat?”

“No, it’s nothing, I know you’re not really one for cuddling.” Chat stepped back and crossed his arms like he was trying to hug himself.

“Chat, you just _died_. You were gone for a couple minutes. If you need to be held, it’s the least I can do, considering that I _should_ be dragging you to a hospital.” When the black cat nodded, she pulled him back into her arms and together they sank to their knees. 

Chat was timid beneath her touch, stiff and flinching, but slowly, Ladybug managed to soothe him. After several minutes of gently stroking his hair and rubbing his back, the lapcat was released. Chat Noir purred contentedly, occasionally butting his head against her hand when he felt she needed encouragement. 

“Chat, you do realize you’re not a real kitty, right?”

Chat responded by chirping and curling up with his head and shoulders in her lap.

Ladybug smiled. “Okay, silly, I suppose you make a good lap warmer.” As she stroked his soft blond hair and that soothing purr wrapped around her logical mind, she found herself falling asleep, leaning against the wall.

The young heroes woke up a few hours later. Marinette went to stroke Chat Noir’s hair like she had been when she fell asleep, and started when she realized that A- she could properly feel his hair and B- he was missing his cat ears. “Oh my God.”

Adrien grumbled incoherently at the sound of her voice. He opened his eyes and saw himself curled up like a cat, realized what had happened, and sighed inwardly. He didn’t want her to leave. “Hello, My Lady,” he said softly.

“What is it about you making me fall asleep here?”

Adrien frowned at the frustrated tone in her voice. “It’s not on purpose.”

 _Sigh_. “I know you know who I am.”

“You do?”

“You said my name when… when you woke up. Earlier.”

Adrien nodded. “And you don’t know who I am.”

“I don’t.”

They were silent. “Well,” Adrien said. “I suppose it’s your choice what happens now.”


	16. Now It Sang a Song of Joy.

Marinette felt her heart race. Chat Noir knew who she was, and he was sitting in front of her waiting for her to decide whether or not she wanted to know who he was. “Uh…” 

Adrien sat upright, facing away from Marinette. He knew she was clever enough to work it out, and it wasn’t like she hadn’t been staring at the back of his head for the entire school year. He just hoped she was willing to work it out, that she wanted to know who he was. 

Marinette’s mind raced with her heart. Chat Noir knew who she was. Well, she might as well know who he was. Who did she know who was athletic enough to be Chat Noir? It was really a toss up between Kim and Adrien, but she and Chat had fought Kim together, and Adrien was in hiding from his father… and so was Chat Noir. Chat Noir said his father was the one who had let him feel unimportant. Just that morning she had heard two ladies in a fabric store speculating over what Gabriel Agreste had done that would make his son flee under the protection of a superhero. And when she had first bent light to move the rubble… Adrien’s smile and Chat Noir’s eyes went together smoothly… Could sweet, gentlemanly Adrien really be the ever-flirtatious Chat Noir?

“A-Adrien?”

Adrien’s hunched shoulders relaxed and he turned to face his Lady, his Princess, smiling. “I missed you too, Marinette.”

Marinette’s jaw dropped. The light was dim, but that face was unmistakeable. “Oh my God Adrien… You’ve been… This whole time…”

Adrien gently took one of her hands. “Hey, no need to sputter over yourself. It’s just me.”

“Just you - Oh my God the guy I’ve been crushing on for a year just got himself electrocuted for me,” Marinette breathed. “What is my life?”

Adrien blinked. “Is… Are you upset?”

Marinette hugged him, wrapping her arms around his waist and burying her face in his chest. “Don’t ever, _ever_ do that again!” 

“I’m sorry?”

“I need you _alive_ , you stupid cat. We’re supposed to be a _team_ , we can’t be a team if you’re dead or just throwing yourself into danger to keep me safe, okay? God, Adrien, Chat Noir, you’re so, so much to me, I can’t imagine how I would get along without you.”

Adrien swallowed and gently petted her hair. “Would you feel better if I told you that Plagg and Nino are making me go to a therapist on Monday?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Plagg and Nino are making me go to a therapist on Monday.”

Marinette looked up, and giggled when she saw amusement in his eyes. “Very funny.”

“You wanna have some fun?”

“Uh, sure?”

Ladybug and Chat Noir slipped out of the warehouse and crossed Paris in silence, and finally Chat helped his partner into the music wing of La Sorbonne through an unlocked window. “Here, let me go find the light switch,” Chat Noir said, seating her at the piano. “You can go ahead and de-transform if you want, I’m sure Tikki’s tired after today.”

Marinette blinked as the lights flickered on. “Isn’t this trespassing?”

Adrien shrugged. “That’s what Chat Noir does, he takes pretty girls trespassing to romantically play them the piano.” He sat down next to Marinette and uncovered the keyboard. “You know, I’ve never actually played this piano in the light.”

“You come here often?”

“At least once every week. In addition to playing in public for money.”

“I didn’t know you were such a dedicated musician.”

Adrien shrugged as he played a few bars that were unfamiliar to Marinette. “I’ve been playing piano since I was eight, but only since becoming Chat Noir did I really get into it. Having the freedom of being able to run off into the night and be somebody else kind of opened up a new mindset for me with the music. For the past several months I’ve been in here all the time, just pouring my soul into the piano.”

“And nobody’s ever noticed? Nobody from the university, I mean.”

Adrien shrugged again. “If they have they haven’t tried to kick me out.” He smiled as he started playing what sounded like the William Tell Overture, except notes went down when they were supposed to go up.

Marinette raised an eyebrow as the blond continued this. 

“Ah, it’s upside down,” Adrien said, and mimed turning over a piece of sheet music. He proceeded to play the tune properly, a smile of approval on his face. He finished the main lick, played a cheery chord, licked his thumb and mimed turning over the sheet. He played a rolling, beautiful chord on his left hand and began to pick out something fast-paced with his right hand. It started with mostly the same high note in a syncopated rhythm, and when his hand came to cascade down the keyboard he simply slid his hands and himself all the way down until he fell off the bench.

Marinette laughed out loud at this. “Adrien, are you okay?”

Adrien returned to his place and leaned against the piano, looking at her. “Don’t you love great music?” He paused. “Then why do you interrupt me?” He shot her a wink and launched into The Blue Danube, purposely starting on the wrong keys. When it sounded wrong, he pretended to peer at his imaginary sheet music. “Ah, transposing!” he announced, stood up, and moved the piano over a few inches before sitting down and playing the famous waltz correctly.

The blond continued with such antics for nearly an hour before Marinette yawned.

“Oh, Princess, are you tired? Shall I play you a lullaby?”

The black-haired girl shook her head. “No, I think it’s time I go home to bed.”

“Ah, good, I was running out of material.”

“Where did you even get all of that?”

“YouTube,” Adrien explained casually as he flicked the lights back off. “Plagg, claws out.” He noticed Marinette starting to transform and quickly put a clawed finger to her lips. “No, no, Princess, let me carry you home.”

“Oh, you don’t have to-”

“I _want_ to.”

Marinette squealed when she was picked up and held with one arm, wrapping her arms around Chat Noir’s neck. “O-okay.” As they travelled through the warm summer night, she found herself leaning into his chest, nuzzling her head under his chin. “You’re comfy,” she murmured, and yawned again.

Chat Noir smiled. “I do my best, Princess.” He carried her into her room and deposited her on her bed. “Goodnight, Marinette.”

“Goodnight, Adrien.”

Just hours before, the cat of Paris’ heart stopped. Now, it sang a song of joy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chap, but i think emotionally satisfying
> 
> which means next chap is gonna be angst train ;D
> 
> also go look up victor borge and witness chat noir's real comedic inspiration


	17. And Then You Can Talk to Me About Priorities

The next day, Chat Noir was playing piano beneath the Arc du Triomphe. He was in an unkillable mood and expressed it with the songs he chose. He was about to dive into some Fun. when a middle-aged man slipped a few euros into his tip hat. 

“Young man, you ought to audition for the music program at La Sorbonne,” the man said.

Chat Noir smiled. “Thank you, sir, but I’m not so sure I’m that good.”

“Don’t put yourself down, Chat Noir. Technically, you’re certainly on par with many of the pianists who are accepted, and emotionally - you make the piano sing. If you have any inclination to pursue music, I would absolutely do it if I were you. And… your Victor Borge routine would be funnier if you did the accent.”

Chat’s eyes widened. “How-”

“I’m the night janitor in the music wing at La Sorbonne. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anybody,” the man said with a wink as he walked away.

Chat Noir blinked. _Every actions an act of creation I’m laughin’ in the face of casualties and sorrow - for the first time I’m thinking past tomorrow!_ He had never considered a career in music. But then, he had never been given a chance to consider a career in anything other than fashion. _There’s a million things I haven’t done… but just you wait, just you wait…_

A fantasy danced in front of him, a vision of an adult Adrien Agreste wielding not a metal baton, but a conductor’s baton. A thousand bells sounded in his heart as he realized that _that_ was what he wanted, and he would never be satisfied until he was there. He smirked when an even better thought crossed his mind - Adrien Dupain-Cheng wielding a conductor’s baton. He thought it had a better ring to it than Marinette Agreste.

His daydream was dispelled by the most immediate, and most important, block in his path. Gabriel Agreste was staring down at him with ice in his eyes. “Chat Noir, I want to know where my son is, and I want to know _now_.”

_He’s right in front of you, dumbass_. “To give you that information outright would be going against promises I’ve already made.”

“With all due respect, Adrien is my _son_ -”

“With all due respect, I don’t have time for your fakeass bullshit, or any desire to deal with it!” Chat found himself standing. He had either gotten taller or more confident, maybe both, and he locked gazes. 

“I don’t have time for the Agreste name to be dragged through the mud!”

Chat Noir scoffed and shook his head. “Your priorities are completely out of whack.”

“You’re too young to understand my priorities!” Gabriel barked.

Chat Noir’s eyes narrowed, and a dark part of him laughed as the older man took a step back. “I’m sorry, which one of us fucking _died_ yesterday? My priorities are out of whack too, sure - but at least I care about people other than myself. Your son will come back to you when you realize that the name doesn’t matter.” He took a step forward. “Figure out which is more important to you - your name or your son - and then you can talk to me about priorities.”

“I can have you arrested for this!”

“And it’s a damn shame I can’t have you arrested for being a stone-hearted son of a bitch.” He wanted to keep talking, he wanted to rip into his father and explain what he had done in no uncertain terms, but he wouldn’t give himself away. “Tell you what, just to get your mug out of my space before I make you, here’s a hint. What was the last thing you said to your son before he left?”

“I told him to act in a manner befitting his name.”

All the anger dropped out of Chat Noir’s face. It was replaced with something like sorrow. “You know what? I give up. Don’t talk to me again. If you really want to miss out on Adrien’s life, you do that, have fun. You have lost my cooperation, and I have no sympathy for you,” he said, and resumed his place at the piano. “Now get out of here, your presence sucks the life out of any place you go.”

Gabriel was getting back into his limo when he heard a familiar melody coming from Chat Noir’s piano. He remembered the trip to New York, the excursion to Broadway to see the musical that had taken the world by storm. He remembered that his son had bawled during the song being played, he remembered the unusual silence as he lectured on the need to present a strong face of the company and of the family name. He paused and listened. 

Chat Noir’s surroundings faded, his awareness that he was surrounded ebbed away as he resigned himself to his father’s inability to understand. His hands went to Dear Theodosia as a matter of reflex. He needed to hear the words of a cooing parent, even if it was his own voice. Perhaps he had cried all the tears he had had yesterday, but when he came to Hamilton’s lines, to the words he wished he didn’t have to sing himself, his voice didn’t crack and his eyes stayed dry. He promised himself that he would be proud of himself, that he would be around for himself, protect himself… and he found his hands moving to Take A Break - the words he wanted to say to his father. 

Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. Aside from the eeriness of watching a mostly-grown man sing soprano, there was an awful familiarity in Eliza’s lines. Conversations with Léonie replayed in his mind. 

_"Take a break,” the blonde woman urged, leaning over his shoulder._

_“I’m on my way,” Gabriel responded, chewing his pen while he picked through a contract._

_“There’s a little surprise before dinner, and it cannot wait,” she continued, gently tugging on his shoulders as if to pull him from his desk._

_“I’ll be there in just a minute, save my plate.”_

_“Gabriel…”_

Chat Noir smiled to himself as he stretched the tone of his voice to rap Philip Hamilton’s lines. In the musical, Eliza had provided the beatboxing, and it had struck him as something his mother would absolutely have wanted to imitate had she been alive to see the show with him.

Gabriel felt his stomach lurch as Chat Noir skipped the dialogue with Angelica and returned to the Schuyler sisters urging Hamilton to take a break. How had he never noticed how much it mirrored one of his last conversations with Léonie before she was swept away in an avalanche, on a vacation with her brother that he had declined to join? Why was Chat Noir focusing on the elements that mirrored his own life? How did he know? As the despicable cat pulled a final chord, he shook his head and got in the limousine. And tried not to think about why Chat Noir’s posture at the piano was so familiar.

Chat Noir groaned as his head rushed after striking the last chord. _Where the hell did that come from?_ he wondered. He shook his head and started to pack up the piano. He slung the cloth case over his back and started to walk aimlessly. He needed to get away from his thoughts as they turned dark, darker than he felt up to battling. The unfortunate curse of being himself, he couldn’t simply leave his thoughts elsewhere. He would tell people that he had resigned himself to being nothing but an employee to his father, but it would be a lie, and the truth of his feelings swirled around him. 

While his conscious mind focused on not succumbing to his sorrow in public, on not letting the hurt go any further than his head, his unconscious carried him to the botanical gardens. _Why is today the day of childhood memories?_ He let his feet carry him to a natural hollow weaved by wisteria vines. With a smile, he squeezed inside and sat down. He wondered now, as he had wondered as a child, how the spherical space, about twelve feet in diameter, had been created.

Chat Noir was woken from his half dream by a familiar voice calling Chat Noir’s name. Grateful for the interruption, he stuck his head out and whistled. “Marinette, over here,” he said, beckoning her with one hand.

Marinette jumped and immediately went to the hollow when she saw her friend’s face. “Chat, what are you doing in there?”

“Come in and see,” the blond said, moving so she could slip in. “Thanks for coming by, you interrupted a really weird dream.”

“What was it about?”

“I don’t know? But it was kind of unpleasant.”

Marinette looked around. “So what’s this?”

“A hollow in a bunch of wisteria. I don’t know how it was formed, but my mother and I used to play in here when I was little.”

“That’s cute, what did you play?”

“Pretend, mostly. We liked pretending that this hollow was an entrance to the spirit world and we’d have to go get help to save dad from evil sorcerers.”

Marinette smiled. “So what happened with him earlier anyway?”

Chat Noir scowled. “I… don’t want to talk about him right now. He already managed to kill an unkillable mood, I’m not gonna beat a dead horse about it.”

“Um, Chat?”

“Hm?”

“You might want to pay attention to that,” Marinette said, pointing at the little black butterfly that had fluttered into the shaded hollow.

“Oh you’ve gotta be - you know what? Fuck this.” Chat reached out and snatched the butterfly from the air. “ _Shut up, Hawkmoth_ ,” he said as the villain’s symbol appeared over his face.

Marinette’s eyebrows shot up as her friend yelled at the akuma.

“Yes, I do have a right to be pissed off, thank you for acknowledging that. In fact, in a morbid roundabout way, I actually owe your ass my life and you don’t deserve it. You have no right to meddle in my home life, you have no right to brainwash me, and you have _no right_ to send one of your damned bugs to _my space_. You think you’re so great and powerful, turning people into something they’re not, but let me explain something: I’m the shadowbinder here, I’m going to find you, and then I’m going to wipe you off the face of the Earth. _And I look forward to it_ ,” he snarled, and crushed the insect in his hand.

“Holy shit,” Marinette breathed.

Chat Noir slumped and wiped the dead bug off his hand. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he grunted.

“You just yelled at Hawkmoth through an akuma.”

“Yeah.”

Marinette smiled. “That was the most badass thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Chat Noir laughed. “I try my best, Princess.”

“I knew you were upset but I didn’t know you were _akuma_ upset.”

“I’m… good at hiding it. I’ve had years of practice, you see ‘anxiety is not a trait befitting an Agreste’,” he said, making quote signs with his hands.

Marinette’s eyes widened. “Oh my God is that what he said to you before you left?”

Chat Noir nodded. “Dude cares so much about the name that he doesn’t even know the heir of the name tried jumping off the mansion once.” His eyes widened and his ears laid back. “Wait, shit, I didn’t want you to know about that.”

Too late. “Oh, Adrien,” Marinette whispered, holding her hands to her mouth. Her eyes were watering. “I never would have-”

“That’s because I hide it.” Chat Noir dropped his transformation and put an arm around the girl. “Hey, I’m fine, okay? See, I’m all here, everything’s fine.”

“B-but, if you - how?”

Adrien sighed. “This is what I was talking about when I said that I owe Hawkmoth my life in a really morbid way. I jumped. I felt alive, I realized I wanted to _stay_ that way, and transformed in midair. Being able to be Chat Noir gave me a will to live.” He squeezed her close. “You don’t need to cry over it, Princess.”

“Is that what you told that man who jumped?”

Adrien nodded. “Right before that, three days before that I had learned about the history of the black cat Miraculous. Basically… any Miraculous can be misused, we know that with Hawkmoth, but it’s most common for me. If I wanted to, I could utterly destroy the entire world, and I spent three days freaking out about it.” He laughed. “I’m still freaking out about it, honestly. But in those three days, I justified my will to live.”

“You don’t need to justify that.”

“When you know that you’re a walking atomic bomb, you do,” he said darkly. “But I figured out that I need to stay alive to protect you, to help you protect Paris.” He withdrew his arm and leaned his head back. “Don’t tell me I don’t need to protect you. A- I do, and B- the vision’s changing. With this sorcerer who released the Shade, I feel like I’m facing my own worst nightmare.” He sighed. “It’s like I’m being given this chance to face down my worst fears about my powers and crush them. To prove to myself that I can be a good guy, that I can make a good mark on the world. I’ve spent my entire life as a pawn for my father’s business, but now?” A manic smile lit his face. “Now I can play the game myself, and I’m excited.”

Marinette blinked. “You’re not a walking atomic bomb, you’re my friend and my partner.”

Adrien smiled and gently headbutted her shoulder, like a cat. “I know, My Lady. No more dying for me.”

“Promise?” Marinette asked, petting his hair. She hadn’t realized how soft it was, but then she had never really felt it.

Adrien nodded and leaned his head on her shoulder. “Promise. Especially if you keep petting my hair like that,” he purred. 

Marinette smiled. “You’re not even in the suit.”

“Don’t forget to keep me out of the catnip,” Adrien said, and changed the subject to something more light-hearted. He didn’t like seeing Marinette worry about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chat noir doesn't have any more chill than Plagg lbr  
> poor marinette has no idea how to deal with The Most Perfect Boy not liking himself and she's gonna worry anyway  
> meanwhile hawkmoth is like wtf


	18. Instinct and Desperation are What Miracles are Made Of

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw for mild gore and averill not knowing how catholic confessionals actually work

That Saturday, there was a trainwreck in Paris, a collision between two major commuter lines. It was a weekend, so it could have been worse, but with the number of tourists in France at this time of year, that wasn’t saying much. Ladybug and Chat Noir were on the scene immediately - Chat Noir had caught a wiff of death smell on the air right before the crash. 

The scene was one of destruction, twisted metal and terrified screams.

“We need to start manipulating the flow of luck right now,” Chat Noir said.

“What do you mean?”

“We’re the Miraculous of good and bad luck,” Chat explained, words coming quickly. “There are people on these trains who are already dead or who are gonna die no matter what we do, and there are people who are gonna live no matter what we do. We need to manipulate the luck so we can catch as many of the people in between as possible.”

Ladybug gulped as Tikki showed her the flow of luck around herself and Chat Noir. The heroes faced each other, and Chat Noir raised the arm closer to the wreck. Blackness immediately began to twist around him as he pulled misfortune from the two trains and drew it along his arms before handing it to his partner. She caught the writhing dark and started turning it into something else. It turned pink, and then white, and then she sent it back into the wreck, stacking the odds in favor of life. “That… was surprisingly easy?”

Chat Noir simply nodded. He glanced over as Ladybug flicked open her yo-yo to communicate with emergency authorities. “Get ready, My Lady, we’re about to do a _lot_ of magic.” 

By the time the first ambulances, fire engines, and police cars arrived, the two heroes had been able to separate the trains far enough to start unbending the metal. To their great horror, a car had been caught in the middle of the head-to-head collision.

Much to her own surprise, Ladybug was immediately giving orders, commanding the ambulances into a single caravan so that the injured could be taken to the hospital as quickly as possible. She organized the police into a perimeter to keep out the media so that she and Chat could concentrate, and gathered the firefighters and their equipment where they would be most needed - in order to stretch the heroes’ magic for as long as possible, the firefighters would be cutting people out whenever and wherever possible.

As the heroes focused on uncrushing the metal at the heads of the trains, Ladybug didn’t even notice when somebody called her name until they tapped her shoulder. “What?” she asked, turning around. Secretly she was grateful to be given an excuse not to look at the glass-shredded teddy bear who’s owner she hadn’t found yet. 

The EMT wore the grim expression of a woman familiar with blood and death. “You have healing magic, right?”

“Yeah?”

“We need it, ma’am. A lot of people are gonna die today, but if you can give them just a couple more minutes, the toll might not be so high.”

Ladybug hesitated, looking over her shoulder at Chat Noir, who was busy moving the metal that had crushed a man’s legs; the firefighters couldn’t simply saw the man out.

Chat Noir noticed her gaze and nodded. “Go,” he grunted as the metal complained. “I can handle this, they need you more.”

Ladybug nodded in return and followed the EMT. “I don’t really know anything about medicine,” she admitted. “When I healed Chat Noir’s lightning wounds it was all instinct and desperation.”

“Instinct and desperation are what miracles are made of, ma’am. As we load victims in, I’ll do triage and judge what they need. Probably only half of people will need magical intervention to make it to the hospital.” She glanced back at the girl, who was obviously younger than her, and sorrow flashed in her eyes before she was all business again. “Don’t worry. If I judge wrong and somebody doesn’t make it there, that’s on me, not you.”

It wasn’t the most comforting thought, but Ladybug found that when she busied herself pressing that molasses light into lungs and skulls and spleens, she didn’t have time to worry. As the sun moved across the sky and the flow of injured didn’t cease, she found herself finding time to worry. She was sweating heavily, and the EMT she was working with, a blonde with a tight bun named Apolline, had forced her to take a break with a bottle of water and a pack of crackers, arguing that she wouldn’t be any help if she was passing out from hunger and dehydration. At her request, Apolline went and ordered Chat Noir to drink at least a few sips before going back to his work. He was much more cooperative after being told that the order came from Ladybug.

After eating half the pack of crackers, Ladybug returned to the caravan of ambulances. Finally, four and a half hours after the wreck, Chat Noir followed the last patient over. “Chat, do you feel up to working some more luck?”

“Yeah. Why, do you want to give the doctors a boost?”

Ladybug nodded. “Apolline, is it alright if we ride along to the hospital and change the luck in favor of the doctors?”

Apolline raised an eyebrow. “You can change luck? Absolutely. God knows every hospital in Paris is slammed, they could use all the help they could get. Come along.”

The heroes spent the next hour reworking luck and blessing every hospital in the city. At the last one, the charge nurse of the E.R. caught them on the way out the door.

“Don’t you even try to leave,” the middle-aged woman said, grabbing their shoulders. “I don’t know what effect your magic has on you two, but it’s obvious from a distance that you’ve exhausted yourselves. You’re staying here where we can keep an eye on you, I’m not having the heroes of Paris passing out in an alley because they worked too hard. Sit over in the waiting room, over there, and someone will bring you water and snacks soon. If you want something classier than cheese crackers, call your parents.”

The young heroes were too tired to argue. As they went to the waiting room, Chat Noir slipped his hand into Ladybug’s. “You did good, My Lady.”

“You too.”

They sat together in two plastic chairs in one corner. “My Lady, I need to de-transform,” Chat Noir said. “The smell is too much.”

Ladybug grimaced. “The smell is a lot even with a normal nose.” Hospital disinfectant combined with blood and other bodily fluids amounted to an experience that would never leave either of them. “I don’t know how people work in emergency rooms.”

“You ought to de-transform and call your parents.”

“My parents don’t know I’m Ladybug.”

“Then call Alya and ask her to bring us food. If that charge nurse will let us, see if she can give us a ride to her place. I’d rather not stay here too long.” The moans of pain from out of sight would be locked in his mind forever.

Alya, of course, was happy to give her friends a ride, and used a fake I.D. to convince the nurse that they were legal adults and could leave without need for parental consent.

“Alya, why do you have a fake I.D.?” Chat Noir asked, dropping his transformation once in her beat-up sedan.

“For times such as these, my friend.”

Adrien and Marinette shrugged. “Well, thank you anyway,” Marinette said.

“Oh, it’s no problem. This is actually really great timing, all my younger siblings are sleeping over at their friends’ houses tonight, so you can crash at my place and you don’t have to stay transformed.”

Marinette nodded. “Lemme text my parents and tell them I’ll be sleeping over.”

When they got to Alya’s house, she already had dinner on the stove, and Nino was rolling out sleeping bags in her room. “I figured you two would be hungry considering how you ate Nino’s entire house after your duel with Plagg.”

“Oh, you have no idea,” Adrien said, excitedly pulling the lid off the pan. “What did you make?”

Alya looked at Marinette. “Girl, all you need to do to make that boy yours is feed him.”

The four gathered in Alya’s bedroom after Adrien and Marinette together ate three-quarters of the ramen stir-fry. “Wow, you guys really drained yourselves,” Nino said.  
Marinette nodded. “That much magic is a lot of work. I don’t know about Adrien, but I was sweating like a pig long before it was over. I don’t know how we had enough energy to restack the odds for every hospital.”

Adrien smiled sleepily. “I suppose you could say it’s… _miraculous_.” 

Marinette laughed. “Very funny.” She yawned.

Alya laughed. “Oh, you two look like you’re about to fall asleep. Go ahead and get some rest, Nino and I’ll be quiet.”

Adrien nodded and slipped into his sleeping bag. “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want Marinette or I to wake up to.”

“Please,” Marinette added, curling up in her own. “Thanks for dinner, Alya.” She was asleep before her friend could even open her mouth. 

In her dream, the sky was red, red like drying blood, and the grass was dead and grey. She was alone in a field, she didn’t recognize the stars above her. Lightning cracked and sang a song of evil glee, the smells of ozone and rotting fruit danced together. The lighting had delivered something to her, twenty feet ahead. A black heap, she walked to it. It took a long moment for her to understand what she was looking at. And the image came together - it was Chat Noir, his body broken and twisted beyond repair, almost beyond recognition as something that had been human. His blood painted the deathly sky and it dripped. The sky was dripping on her, blood was dripping on her, blood was in her hair and soaking her clothes and streaming down her face and there was a laugh behind her. 

She couldn’t turn. She was held still, and a feminine voice cackled behind her. 

“The blood of the young makes the _loveliest_ bath, does it not?”

Marinette trembled as the corpse in front of her untwisted and rose.

In his dream, the sky was red, red like drying blood, and the grass was dead and grey. He was alone in a field, he didn’t recognize the stars above him. The earth shook and sang a song of evil glee, and two stone pillars pressed upwards from the ground. He was held still by a force he couldn’t identify, and heard three voices at once. A feminine voice cackled. 

“Oh, how the standards have lowered,” taunted a masculine voice.

And there was screaming.

Nino and Alya were ripped from peaceful slumber by their friends screaming in their sleep. Immediately, they went to their friends. When they woke up, the heroes immediately faced each other. 

“The sky was red,” Adrien gasped.

“It was your blood,” Marinette squeaked.

“That laugh-”

“The lightning-”

Tikki and Plagg silently slipped off to have a conversation. 

Marinette hugged him tightly. “You were dead…”

“Shh, I’m alive, I’m here, I’m okay.” Adrien hugged equally tight. “We’re both okay, it was just a nightmare.”

Nino took a breath. _Okay, both of them need Aunt Marina’s card_. “Are you guys okay?”

Marinette tucked her head under Adrien’s chin, clutching his shirt. “Don’t you dare die, Adrien. That’s the second time I’ve… Stay alive dammit.”

Adrien swallowed. “I will, my lo-lady. I’ll stay alive. Come here,” he murmured, and pulled her closer. 

Alya took a breath. _They’re having nightmares, okay_. “I’m gonna make some hot cocoa, you guys need it.” She went to the kitchen and paused when she heard high voices. 

“Adrien was dreaming about the pillars,” Plagg hissed. “You know what that means.”

“Of course I know what it means, Marinette heard… her voice. And with that sorcerer running around…”

“Do you think he’ll try to-?”

“I don’t want to think about it,” Tikki sighed. “But it’s a possibility. But we can’t take the kids to -”

“Hush. Alya, I see you,” Plagg hissed.

Alya stepped into the kitchen. “Sorry, sorry, I came to make hot chocolate for Adrien and Marinette.” She frowned. “There’s a reason why they’re having nightmares?”

“They’re having nightmares because of what their position has put them through,” Tikki said darkly. “The problem is why they had almost the exact same nightmare.” She floated over to Alya and patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry about them, Alya, Plagg and I will take care of them.”

Alya smiled. “I’m the eternal mom friend, it’s my job to worry about them." Her voice took on a hard edge. "I don’t know what you’re talking about with that sorcerer, and I don’t really know what you guys are, but I’m the mom friend, and mom wrath is something else, so if it comes down to a giant magic battle, Adrien and Marinette had _better_ come out of it alive and well. Got it?”

Plagg and Tikki smiled at each other. “You’re a good friend, Alya,” Tikki said. 

“Damn straight.”

The kwami migrated to another part of the house to continue their conversation. Plagg chuckled. “She loves them enough to threaten forty thousand year old spirits of creation and destruction. I like her.”

“She’d get along well with Meeru,” Tikki mused. “I’m not actually suggesting it,” she defended when Plagg shot her a look.

By the time Alya returned bearing four mugs of hot chocolate, a bag of marshmallows, and a few candy canes, Adrien and Marinette were curled up together, black hair tucked under blond chin, hand in hand and arms around each other. 

“Are you guys sure you’re okay?” Nino asked.

“No,” Marinette whimpered.

“We’re working on it.” Adrien looked over his shoulder and smiled reassuringly at Alya. “You bring gifts.”

“I bring gifts.”

The four teenagers sipped their cocoa in a tense silence. Adrien interrupted the silence with the sound of unzipping his and Marinette’s sleeping bags and laying one on top of the other, like a sheet and a blanket big enough to share.

Marinette watched this, brow furrowed. “Why?”

“Because I won’t be able to sleep without being able to feel that you’re safe next to me,” Adrien murmured. He was too tired to censor what he really thought.

Marinette blushed a little and smiled. “I was thinking the same thing,” she said, and curled up next to him. She looked up when she felt Alya and Nino staring at her with a mixture of concern and amusement. She shook her head in a _don’t even think it_ kind of way.

Alya and Nino glanced at each other, shrugged, and followed their friends’ lead. After that day, sleeping with somebody else _did_ feel safer.

The rest of the weekend came and went, and Chat Noir found himself on the roof of the building where Nino’s aunt’s psychology practice was. Thanks to internet blueprints, he knew which window was the one that he would, in Nino’s words, sneaky sneak into.

Dr. Marina Roche smiled as she let the blond into her office. “How nice to see you, Adrien,” she greeted, and amusement gleamed in her eyes when his brows shot up.

“How did you know?”

“Nino worries about you. Go ahead and sit down, would you like some tea?”

Chat Noir sat down and released his transformation. “Uh, no thank you, Dr. Roche.”

To Adrien’s pleasant surprise, the next hour wasn’t a storm of emotion and releasing deep psychological turmoil. Instead, Dr. Roche had simply gotten to know him and gotten a beginning idea of what he wanted and needed from her as a therapist. Not being judged for having emotions was a rather nice change of pace, as was having an adult actually care what he wanted. He left her office at about ten with another appointment scheduled for the next week, and as he crossed through the belltower of one of the older cathedrals, he noticed a familiar limousine. 

Chat Noir instantly grew suspicious. He knew his father wasn’t religious, or at least he had never known the man to go to any church, so what was the older Agreste doing in a cathedral this late at night? He slipped into the building through the little used trapdoor of the tower - the bells at this church were rung mechanically, and people only came up for maintenance - and crept through the dim passageways. This was the beauty of old cathedrals for him, all the small secret passages that were never used anymore, that allowed him to slip about and observe without being observed. 

As he moved, he heard a familiar voice below and in front of him, in the main chapel. Wrapping shadows around himself, he peeked over and saw his father talking to a priest. _Well, I told him to admit what he’d done to me, I suppose confessing to a priest qualifies. If that’s what he’s here for._ If there was a hell, Chat Noir was certainly destined for it because he was about to listen in on that very confession and didn’t feel a damn bit guilty about it.

A few minutes of searching, he found a spider-webbed closet adjacent to the confession booth and closed himself inside, pressing his ear to the wall. 

Gabriel Agreste was visibly uncomfortable in the small, dim room. He had never been to a church in his life except for weddings and funerals. He swallowed, opened his mouth, and closed it without saying a word. This happened a few times. “I think that all my efforts to protect my son have ended in losing him,” he said finally, voice hoarse. “His mother, my wife, Léonie, she died in an avalanche in the Mátra range in Hungary six years ago. Even before, I was too focused on my work, I ignored my family. And then… _And then I let my son lose both his parents_.”

Chat Noir squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to breathe normally. He would not cry, he would not give himself away even as he heard his father cry for the first time since the funeral. He listened as the man went through everything he had done, admitting that he left his son to be raised by hired staff, that his personal assistant was the one who bought birthday and Christmas presents, that a model’s diet isn’t meant for a growing boy, that he worked him too hard and isolated him from his peers, and then Gabriel Agreste surprised him.

“Léonie had had depression and anxiety for as long as I knew her… She had gone on the skiing trip to celebrate a decade without hurting herself… And then when Adrien had a panic attack at school I told him that it wasn’t a trait befitting the family name.”

Chat Noir felt his heart stop. _Mom had mental problems too?_ He had never known. He had never tried to hurt himself because he didn’t want his makeup artists and photographers to ask uncomfortable questions, and he had never guessed that he wasn’t the only one in the family. But then he didn’t really know much about his relatives; Gabriel was estranged from most of his family, and Léonie’s brother disappeared a few months after the funeral, grief-stricken. 

But he had heard what he needed to hear. So Chat Noir rose and exited the church through the same trapdoor he had come through. As he came to the belltower, he paused. This cathedral had four bells divided into two pairs which played perfect fifths, one pair a third higher than the other. He formed ropes from the shadows and pulled one of the pairs, just once, and left.

In the confession booth, the priest raised an eyebrow. “Your prayers for forgiveness have been answered, I think. Those two bells that just rang are named Gabriel and Adrien.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gonna be completely 10,000% real the dream sequence was not something i intended to have in this chapter, it just kind of happened  
>  also to be real, i feed on comments


	19. Ladybug, I Need You to Save Me from This Owl-deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for averill being inconsistent about the use of accent marks

That night, Chat Noir went to the rave. And he _raved_. At first, it had been for practical reasons - he needed to literally move through his thoughts. He needed to literally dance between forgiveness and resentment, revelation and secrecy, to take a _grand jete_ and see where he landed.

There were a lot of steps between the first and where he found himself at the end of the night. By dawn, he had tried his first (and, if he had anything to do with it, last) taste of alcohol, and several hundred hours worth of footage had been taken of him dancing in a dozen different styles. Surprisingly, people had seemed much more interested in _Chat Noir is a ballerino?_ than _Chat Noir is a pole dancer_. He would tell them that he had only gone to ballet classes for two years, but the people wanted more, and that was how Chat Noir fell over dizzy in the middle of the dance floor after getting into a _fouette_ contest with an actual ballerina. He could _feel_ Alya laughing at him from her house as she made gifs for the Ladyblog.

By dawn, Chat Noir had also worked out his course of action. He went to breakfast at a Greek place that made the best gyros he had ever tasted - how was it that all the fancy restaurants he had gone to as Adrien paled in comparison to smaller family-owned businesses and the cooking of friends? And then he made his way to the Agreste mansion. His father was a strong believer in the idiom “late to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”, so he perched over the window of his father’s study. He sniffed the air, looking for an excuse to chicken out, and was eternally grateful to find an akuma to the east.

Chat Noir raced himself to the apartment building where the akuma lived. _Oh God another bird akuma?_ Apparently the person beneath the stupid “Silent Night” costume hadn’t gotten much sleep because of his noisy neighbors, and was putting everybody on mute. Of course, Silent Night had to be owl themed. _Joy_. He crouched on the opposite rooftop, ears roving for sounds of Ladybug while he watched the akuma for what its cursed item would be. His eyes narrowed when they fell on the sleep mask pushed up on the man’s forehead. He wondered if Hawkmoth was purposely making it harder to grab the akuma items.

Ladybug landed softly next to her partner. “How do you keep getting here first?”

“I have nothing better to do with my life.” He fixed her with a serious, wide-eyed gaze. “Ladybug, I need you to save me from this owl-deal.”

“That was weak.”

Chat Noir smiled. “Yeah, it was. Okay, the akuma’s in his sleep mask, and he’s muting people by hooting in their direction. How do you wanna do this?”

“Honestly, I think it’ll be easiest to wait til his back is turned and just jump him.”

“Sounds like a hoot.”

Ladybug rolled her eyes at her partner’s shit-eating grin. “Very cute. Okay, his back’s turned, let’s go.” She primed herself to leap, but Chat stopped her. “Wait. He might shoot feathers like a porcupine or something, bend yourself some armor.”

Ladybug nodded and bent the morning sunlight around herself, crafting a layer of translucent pink around herself, floating just inches above her skin. When the owl’s back was turned, she caught her yo-yo on an antenna on the opposite rooftop and swung to it, Chat Noir right behind her. As they landed, she glanced behind and saw that he had bent himself multiple plates of night-black armor that mirrored the seams in his suit. 

She saw his vivid eyes widen and immediately turned back to the owl, too late. It puffed up its chest and gave a massive _HOO_ , and the two were knocked back to the roof they had been on by the sound wave.

“Okay, I wasn’t expecting that,” Chat Noir wheezed.

“Neither was I.” Ladybug started to sit up, but was knocked back by another supersonic hoot of the owl. 

The akuma followed them and stood over them. “You two make too much noise, I think I’ll put you to sleep,” it said, and puffed out its chest.

“ _Silence!_ ” Chat Noir hissed. Acting completely on instinct and the knowledge that one of those hoots this close would destroy their eardrums at best, he rose to his feet and drew a symbol with his left hand, mimicked it with his right. For an instant, a sigil in black shadow bloomed over its open mouth, and no sound came out.

Ladybug blinked. “What did you do?” she asked as she snatched the eye mask from the akuma’s head and ripped it in half.

“I don’t know.” He was uncomfortably reminded of his near-death experience, when he boiled away the dark pool he had fallen into. “But it worked.”

“Is it just me or is Hawkmoth purposely making us get closer to the akumas?”

Chat Noir shrugged. “Anything is possible. Maybe he’s getting desperate.”

Ladybug sighed as they hopped off the building together. “What does he even want with our Miraculous?”

“Uh, all the combined power of creation and destruction?”

“Yeah, but what is he gonna use it for?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” The two heroes walked for a while; neither had used their special power so they didn’t need to de-transform. 

“Do you think we’re going to actually go head-to-head with Hawkmoth?” Ladybug asked.

“What do you think we’ve been sparring Plagg and Tikki for? The challenge is going to be finding him.” Chat Noir considered this. “I think during our patrols we should focus on that.”

“And how do you expect us to do that?”

“You’re gonna hate me for suggesting it.”

Ladybug narrowed her eyes. “Shoot.”

“The Mayor’s daughter is your biggest fan.”

“Wait. Are you suggesting I use Chloé to get help from the Mayor? Why can’t I just ask the Mayor himself?”

Chat Noir shook his head. “Not for help, for information. For intelligence. If Hawkmoth can afford to stand around all day waiting for somebody to get angry enough to akumatize, he probably doesn’t have a day job, or a family to pay attention to. He’s probably something of a recluse. If anybody can get us information on reclusive rich men without families, it’s Chloé and her father. Chloé’s a gossip anyway, I’m sure she’d love to give you all the social information we want.” 

“Gee, that profile almost sounds like your father.”

Chat Noir smiled. “I considered it once, but let’s be real, a fashion designer never would have created some of these akumas. Besides that, he’s out of the country half the year.”

“So when do you want me to talk to Chloé?”

“Before school starts again. But, not right now. She’s not a morning person in any sense of the word.”

Ladybug smiled. “And here I thought your snobby rich kid connections were only good for _creating_ akumas.”

“It’s not snobby rich kid connections if it’s actually useful; then it’s called networking,” Chat Noir explained, slipping his hand into hers.

“Why are you holding my hand?”

Chat immediately removed it. “Oh, sorry, just…”

Ladybug gave him an amused smile. “You like holding hands, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

Ladybug took his hand back in hers, and scratched under his chin with her other hand. “You are the cuddliest kitty cat I’ve ever met in my life.”

“Well you haven’t been hanging out with the right cats.”

It was that Friday afternoon that Ladybug and Chat Noir landed on Chloé’s balcony. 

The blonde girl was immediately falling over herself to let them in and take as many selfies as fast as she could with Ladybug. “Oh my God I’m so excited you’re here, do you want anything to drink?” she exclaimed. Chat Noir could practically see the exclamation points floating around her head.

“Actually, we were hoping you could help us with something.”

Chloé blinked, and then her eyes widened with absolute glee. She made a squealing sound and jumped up and down a little bit before gasping, “I would be honored! How can I help you?”

Ladybug blinked. She had never known her classmate to be this hospitable, but she wasn’t about to complain. “Chat Noir and I are training and gearing up to confront Hawkmoth head-on-”

“-Oh how exciting!”

“-yes… But the problem, is we have no idea where his home base is. All we know is that he has enough free time to wait all day for somebody to get angry enough to akumatize, so we’re assuming he’s rich enough that he doesn’t need to work and we’re assuming he doesn’t have any family commanding his attention.”

“Unless that’s why he wants our Miraculous,” Chat Noir mused. “He might have a family member who’s very ill, or even dead, who knows, and he wants to use our Miraculous to revive them. And this person will probably be rather reclusive. Who can you think of that fits the bill?”

Ladybug and Chat Noir glanced at each other. The blonde looked like she was about to pop like a very excited balloon.

“ _You_ want _me_ to help identify _Hawkmoth_?” Chloé breathed.

“Yes,” the heroes said simultaneously.

“Reclusive rich men, either with no families or with dead or ill families… well my first thought would be Gabriel Agreste, but he’s out of the country most of the time and there’s no way he would design some of those villains.”

“Told you,” Chat Noir mouthed.

“Let’s see…” Chloé paused and grabbed a pen and paper, and proceeded to give Ladybug and Chat Noir a twenty minute lecture on the entirety of Paris’ social elite. “And, well it’s unlikely because as far as I know none of them live in Paris right now, I suppose it could be one of the Ibarras.”

Chat Noir’s eyebrows shot up. “Ibarra?”

“Yes, the Ibarra family is old money from somewhere in southern France. There’s all kinds of rumors about them being involved in witchcraft and stuff, why I’ve even heard whisperings that it was an Ibarra that released that horrible shadow monster.”

Chat Noir narrowed his eyes. “You said that as far as you know none of the Ibarras are in Paris right now, do they have an estate here?”

“Yes, but I have no idea where it is. They’re a very secretive family, though I know they throw a lot of money at libraries and archeological research. It’s probably haunted, honestly. If it’s an Ibarra, he might want your Miraculous just because; _everybody_ in that family is insane. Actually, now that I think of it, Gabriel Agreste’s wife Léonie was an Ibarra.” Chloé tapped her chin. “Yeah, and after she died her brother mysteriously disappeared. I was only ten years old at the time, of course, but I do remember there were rumors that she didn’t really die in an avalanche and that he actually killed her.”

Ladybug glanced at Chat Noir. She couldn’t read very much in his face, but she could tell that he hadn’t heard any of this. “I think that’s all the information we need. Thank you, Chloé, this was very helpful.”

Together, the superheroes left with the list. “I need to go somewhere,” Chat Noir said, and vaulted off before Ladybug could argue. He came to the Agreste mansion and angrily paced the roof. He didn’t know anything about his extended family. Until just minutes ago, he didn’t even know that his mother’s family had money - and he hadn’t had any reason to, given his father’s fondness of lecturing on how hard work had brought him to his station. 

Chat Noir stopped pacing and sighed. If he wanted to find out more about if Chloé’s rumors had substance to them, the first thing he would have to do was talk to his father.

Gabriel Agreste was trying to read an article on how Ladybug and Chat Noir had influenced Parisian street fashion when he heard a knock at his office window. He narrowed his eyes when he saw Chat Noir gazing seriously at him. “Can I help you?” he asked after opening the window.

“Letting me in would make a good start. I know I make balancing on top of an inch-wide pole look easy, but it’s really quite a task.”

Gabriel pursed his lips, but stood aside so the blond could enter. “I don’t think I should be allowing you into my home with that attitude.”

 _You never made this place feel like a home_. Chat Noir bit his tongue. _Not the time_. “You figured it out.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You completed the challenge. You figured out why he left, and you figured out what the last straw was.”

Gabriel took a deep breath. “So Adrien is coming home?”

Chat Noir smiled. “That’s right.”

“Then, where is he?” He said, resisting the urge to crane his neck like his son was somehow hiding behind the superhero. His eyes fixated on the ring on Chat Noir’s finger. In the past year, plaque rings had taken off because of it. Adrien wore a silver ring in that exact same - his eyes widened. “Right in front of me, isn’t he?”

Chat Noir smiled wider and gave the command to drop the transformation.

Gabriel Agreste half fell into his chair as he watched green light spread from the ring and dissolve the black leather - _no, probably not real leather, it restricts flexibility_ \- to reveal his son. For a long moment, he simply stared at his son, the spitting image of his wife, the only family he had left. And then he stood back up and swept him into his arms. “I’m sorry,” he whispered frantically. “I’m so so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so-”

“I missed you too, dad,” Adrien said, hugging back. “I missed you a lot.”

The understanding went unspoken, that Adrien had missed his father for longer than the previous month. “Let’s talk in the gardens,” Gabriel said finally.

Together, they walked to the vast gardens on the west end of the Agreste estate. “I never should have told you what I did about your anxiety. Your mother had problems with it her entire life, I should have done something to get you help.”

Adrien nodded. “I… kind of overheard you at the church. Well, eavesdropped.”

“I’m fairly certain it’s not acceptable to listen in on such things.”

Adrien raised his head and gave his father a look when he realized that the unfamiliar tone in his voice was _humor_. “Dad, don’t you know cats like breaking rules?”

Gabriel smiled. “You rang the bells.”

Adrien nodded. “It seemed like the right thing to do.”

They talked and walked the gardens for hours. After a while, they settled on a bench flanked by lavender bushes. “So, you’re Chat Noir.”

“Yeah. Don’t feel bad about not knowing, Ladybug herself didn’t figure it out until recently.”

“That’s not it.” Gabriel sat back and sighed. “There’s something you must know about your mother. She also held one of the Miraculous.”

Adrien’s eyes widened. “What?”

Gabriel stared straight ahead. “She was an archeologist by training and an occultist by hobby. When we were first dating, she found one of them on a dig in Aquitaine, and she fell in love with it. She was absolutely fascinated by magic and by the history of the occult in Paris.” He smiled. “Once I had to bail her out of jail for sneaking off into the deeper parts of the catacombs.”

“Wait, the catacombs? Did you ever watch her do magic?”

Gabriel nodded. “She was a, oh what did she call it, a lightbender. I liked watching her practice because when she bent the light it turned the most beautiful shade of blue.”

“Did it smell like mint?”

The older man blinked. “Mint?”

Adrien scratched the back of his neck. “Uh, yeah. When Ladybug and I were looking in the catacombs after the Shade was released, we found what felt like another seal on the room it had been in. There were symbols etched into the walls that glowed blue. As Chat Noir I have a better sense of smell and I smelled spearmint.”

“That was probably your mother’s magic. She didn’t tell me a lot of details - largely because I never asked - but I know that she’s done magic all over Paris.”

Adrien considered this, and then he remembered death’s near him experience. “So did she mostly use symbols?”

“Yes, I think so. Why?”

“When I was electrocuted as Chat Noir, I’m fine, by the way, Ladybug healed me,” he added quickly, “apparently I died for a couple minutes. When I was… out… I felt like I was sinking in a deep pool. When I realized I needed to get out, I remember drawing a symbol in the water with one hand and making a sign with the other and the water boiled off, and then I woke up.” Adrien shivered. He hadn’t given anybody details of what had happened until now.

Gabriel was silent for a moment. “I do remember her saying that magic runs in her family.” He pulled his son into another hug. “I’m so glad you’re alive. To think that you could have died that day and I never would have known-” He broke off with a choked sob.

Adrien welcomed the hug and returned it. “I know.”

“I think, if you and Ladybug are looking for a direct confrontation with Hawkmoth, you might be interested in reading your mother’s journals. She never went to bed without writing for at least half an hour, there might be something that can help you in them.”

“We’re… not ready yet, but yeah, that would probably help a lot.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help, tell me.”

Adrien smiled. “I will.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Averill, weren't there four more chapters after this?
> 
> YES THERE WERE MY DEAR CITIZEN
> 
> Okay so here's the dealio. Counting what I just deleted and the sin bin, I've written motherfucking 60K words on this fic. Okay, that's cool Averill, what's the big deal? The big deal is I did it in less than two weeks and... it was becoming apparent. I'm gonna be really real with y'all, the reason you've been getting chapters at a pace of at least one per day is because I'm literally posting shit as I write it, and now that the plot is starting to progress away from it had originally been, I need to A-actually work out where I'm trying to go (and more importantly, how to get there) and B-actually edit the words that come out of my face.
> 
> So from now on you're going to be getting work out at less of a breakneck pace. You'll probably get more stuff at least twice a week, definitely at least once a week, just because I'm still hella hyperfocused on this fic (god bless and curse you adhd) but the update at least once a day thing is off the table. I'm telling you this not to be like "don't yell at me for more" but actually just to take the pressure off myself because my own weird pride in updating that damn fast has led me to focus on Gotta Update Today rather than Gotta Write Good Words, which is the IMPORTANT thing here.
> 
> So yeah. *dabs and ollies out*


	20. Epilogue and Author's Note

HOKAY. So I've been re-writing this fic chapter by chapter for a while, and we've all been anticipating me adding on to it. 

I had a revelation about this fic a few days ago and only now have I actually accepted the truth: this fic has gotten so far away from the original theme and goal and story that it's unsalvageable. SO I am declaring it finished with our tearful-if-written-in-a-hyperfocus-fueled-rush father-son reunion. 

I am in the middle of prewriting a new, fully and thematically revamped version of this fic that will honestly most likely not make an appearance until some time in December 2016 (because NaNoWriMo, mostly). Sorry if this disappoints, but it's what needs to be done. This is what happens when you publish something you're writing completely by the seat of your pants, kids. Normally I would delete this thing entirely, but honestly there are several passages that I'm genuinely proud of (the training fights with Plagg and Tikki come to mind) and I don't want to lose the lovely comments I've gotten, so I'm leaving it up. 

Thank you all so so so so much for reading and commenting and kudos-ing, and I hope you come back for more!


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